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I was a massive fan of the C4 days, and lost interest in the C5 days (apart form the celeb versions). Are ITV now doing what C5 did with those insufferable music sequences with lots of footage with no dialogue and sticking everyone's names up over and over when they speak? I thought this was supposed to be a "back to basics" fresh start for the show, not some reboot of what C5 were doing and just putting it on a different channel.

Love Island style music after every ad break, during tense situations, secret missions, emotional moments and nominations. It really does detract from it all for me and I don’t want to be whining about it for the sake of whining but I really haven’t gotten used to it.

Show wise it feels somewhere in the middle of the very late series on C4 and the early series on C5. Certainly not back to basics or “social experiment” vibes but I will say it’s enjoyable and the cast is one of the best in a long while. It’s essentially aesthetically a C5 series but a lot more bearable. 

They have done a lot of it well though despite my gripes - I’m especially impressed is how interactive the show is now. Votes are now free which is great and the response has been really impressive. It’s a long way from the later Channel 5 days where there was whispers from behind the scenes that they were *allegedly* getting <1K votes sometimes.