[Scrotnig]

It was by far the highest rated series - hit 7m a night towards the end (admitedly once the twist had wrapped up, but ratings were high throughout) compared to most other series around then getting 4-5m for non-eviction shows.    And 21 years on it still has one of the most memorable groups of housemates, so I don't think it was a barrier at all to housemates personalities being shown on screen.

Importantly though we knew what the purpose of it was - and limiting interactions isn't necessarily a bad thing rather than housemates being in their same cliques all the time.   Indeed that's the problem with starting with a big cast too - it basically fractions off into three or four friendship groups who end up interacting very little with each other, and nominations never get to the point where the do have to genuinely nominate their friends.

Fair enough…..I didn’t like it then! 
I did still like the series overall and it certainly did have a memorable cast, especially the guy who “escaped”, always did wonder if that was contrived though.