Secret Story (France)

Secret Story is a French reality show hosted by Benjamin Castaldi (season 1 to 8) and Christophe Beaugrand (season 9). It has been broadcast on the channel TF1 since 23 June 2007.

Secret Story takes more or less the basic principles of Big Brother, a reality show created in 1997 by the Dutchman John de Mol, and in this way, comes after the Loft Story, an earlier French adaptation of Big Brother, also hosted by Castaldi in 2001 and 2002 on the channel M6.

The game contestants are cut off from the rest of the world during ten to fifteen weeks in a house called “house of secrets”, where every room is fitted with video cameras, except the restroom. They have to keep a secret while trying to discover the other contestants’ one.

At the beginning of each season, the “house of secrets” also contains hidden rooms. It contains for example a “Chamber of truths” in the first season (room accessible by pressing a button hidden in the tapestry), a “Cave of love” in the second season (room accessible by a passage in the pool), or “a house of intruders” in the third season (room accessible by a secret passage on the floor). Some “Secret rooms” are also set up for each season where two contestants announced as eliminated to the other candidates have to remain locked up in order to see all their comings and goings through television screens.

Other rooms are features of Big Brother, as the “confessional” where each contestant goes every day to give his impression or opinion on events that happen in the house, or a double-door entrance, an intermediary passage between the house and outside, where “nominated” (contestants who have been chosen to leave the house by the others) learn their elimination or reintegration in the house where some contestants can come into contact with other candidates who have already been eliminated through a glass pane.

An invisible male character named “The Voice” can speak at any time to the contestants through the speakers and give them instructions. This is the voice of the radio host Dominique Duforest. “The Voice” always starts its interventions with the sentence "This is the Voice” and ends with “That is all … for now ”. At the beginning of the game, “the Voice” imposes some rules that the contestants have to obey during the whole game if they don’t want to be penalized (no more warm water, withdrawal of a contestant’s kitty bank for example). During the game, a “red phone” makes its appearance from which “The Voice” can get the contestants that answer win or lose money, give a resident one more vote against him for nominations, or allow a contestant to “nominate automatically” another one.

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Wikipedia