Pinoy Big Brother: Unlimited

The fourth season of Pinoy Big Brother, subtitled Unlimited premiered on the ABS-CBN network on October 29, 2011, and ran for 155 days until March 31, 2012. This is the fourth main season and the ninth season overall to air on the network. This season is currently the longest civilian season to date and broke the previous civilian season's record for the longest duration by three more weeks and also ranked as one of the show's longest seasons worldwide as of that time, only surpassed by a number of seasons held in Germany, until it was later beaten by Lucky 7 on 2016 and later on Otso which currently holds the record, with 268 days.

It is the only regular season with a male winner: Slater Young. Pamu Pamorada was the runner-up, while Joseph Biggel, and Paco Evangelista were the finalists.

Auditions
Auditions for the season started in Metro Manila on March 4, 2011, at the SM Mall of Asia where around 10,000 people attended. Show director Lauren Dyogi said the turnout at the Mall of Asia audition was the largest in the show's history. Other auditions were held at several key cities in the Philippines from March to July 2011, plus overseas auditions in Tokyo and Los Angeles. The total number of aspirants for the season, as claimed by the show, was 30,789. A total of 37 housemates entered for this season; fourteen on opening night, fifteen on Day 8, six on Day 15, and two on Days 23 and 25.

Primers & shows
In the run-up to the premiere, a special weekday afternoon primer entitled Pinoy Big Brother: The Audition Stories started airing on October 24, 2011. It featured several participants whose audition stories caught the interest of the producers. The afternoon primer lasted until November 4, 2011. It eventually gave way to the new show, Pinoy Big Brother: UnliDay, the day main program. The said program shows the latest happenings of the Day Housemates from the Industrial House.

Hosts
Toni Gonzaga and Bianca Gonzalez reprised their hosting stints for the show, together with Teen Edition Plus runner-up Robi Domingo.

House theme
For the season, the exterior of the House was slightly tweaked to have slotted walls and minor modifications, but still keeping the yellow and blue color scheme. There are five areas for this season: four Houses and a special area. Two of the houses, the Industrial and Luxury Houses, are connected via a secret hallway first revealed on Day 22 and fully opened on Day 65.
 * Slums: First occupied on opening night, the Slums was made to look like a typical squatters' area in many urban areas in the Philippines. This was done to let the housemates experience the same living conditions as 15 million Filipinos who live in such areas, based from a typical answer during auditions of experiencing typical Filipino life. This House was demolished on Day 22.
 * Industrial House: The interior of the second House follows the regular House layout and its accompanying amenities. It is further given an "industrial" feel with steel, wooden, and brick walls. Unlike previous seasons, however, this House has no yard area. The house was opened on Day 8 and was closed down on Day 77.
 * Luxury House: Also called the Mansion, the third House is exquisitely furnished and brightly lit. Like the Industrial House, this House also has no yard area, although sunlight somehow passes through a curtain. This house was opened on Day 22.
 * Resort: Located adjacent to the Luxury House, this area is sophisticated with the inclusion of the pool and a Jacuzzi in the beach-themed Garden area. It is used as a venue for special occasions and tasks. This area was opened on Day 15 and the door to the resort (hidden under a curtain in the Luxury House) was opened on Day 65.
 * Hacienda: Located at the activity area, the Hacienda is modelled after a typical plantation in the Philippines by featuring several plants. It contains a large hut where the housemates would live in. This House was opened on Day 128.

Unlimited twists

 * Reserved housemates — short-listed auditionees are given another chance to become official housemates.
 * Unli-Day/Unli-Night —The show features two houses, each containing a different set of housemates. To accommodate both, a second main program, Unli-Day, was aired in the afternoons to focus on the events in the Industrial House. The setup only applies to weekdays; on weekends, nomination and eviction nights, and special shows, the primetime program would cover both Houses. With the closure of the Industrial House on Week 11, Unli-Day was directed towards covering events in the active House(s) while the host has an interview session with former housemates.
 * House Swaps — Housemates will be made to swap houses and group members as instructed by Big Brother.
 * SE Voting System — The public votes to save or evict a housemate. The housemate with the lowest net votes, Save and Evict votes combined, is evicted. This voting system was stopped after the fourth eviction round.
 * Head of Household — Housemates compete against each other to be granted immunity in the coming nomination.
 * House Competitions — For ten weeks, the two Houses compete in weekly major competitions with PHP150,000 at stake in each. At the end of those ten weeks, the cash accumulated by each team would be shared among the final five housemates in each House. The teams would also compete in "mini-battles" wherein the winning team would be given minor rewards.
 * Intensity 7 — On Day 71, the remaining 20 housemates, 11 from Team High-Voltage and nine from Team Wayuk, were put-up for 24-hour public voting. The top five housemates from each team will be safe from elimination on Day 78, where six housemates will be evicted from the house. A sequel twist, called the Aftershock, would test the remaining housemates further.
 * Various Nominations – Various nomination processes were implemented as per Big Brother. See Nomination history for details.
 * Overnight Voting - In some eviction nights, people will only be given 24 hours to vote for their favorite housemate.
 * House Players - An evicted housemate will remain in the house to test the remaining official housemates through tasks set by Big Brother and the audience.
 * Wildcard Housemate - An evicted housemate will have a chance to come back on the roster of housemates.
 * Power of One - Starting the 13th eviction, the public may only vote once per day per mobile phone number.
 * Big Shot for the Big Slot - The final five housemates are given the chance to have a fifth slot in the finale by completing a shooting task.

Housemates
A total of fourteen housemates entered the House on Day 1, thirteen official housemates plus a sub-official housemate acting as a "mole" in a task to become the fourteenth official housemate. That sub-official housemate was chosen by lottery from a pool of 30 reserved housemates. These are the auditionees who were shortlisted for the show, but did not make the official cut.

All thirteen official housemates plus the sub-official "mole" housemate, chosen via random sampling, entered the House on Day 1 (October 29, 2011). A second batch of housemates entered the House on Day 8, although those assigned to the Industrial House were not physically inside until the next day. Eight reserved housemates entered on Days 15, 23 and 25. The ages indicated were the housemates' ages upon their entrance to the House.

A grand total of 37 housemates—the third most number of housemates in the Philippine franchise behind Otso season's 58 housemates and Kumunity 10's 46 housemates.

Houseguests
Similar to the franchise's previous seasons, Big Brother invited guests to his house for special purposes.

Notable houseguests for this season were ex-housemates from previous seasons such as Melisa Cantiveros, Jason Francisco, Anthony Semerad and David Semerad. Franzen Fajardo, Baron Geisler, Beauty Gonzalez, Rica Paras returned as house players. Previous winners, Nene Tamayo, Beatriz Saw, and Keanna Reeves, who became Fairy Godmothers.

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House Competitions (Kontra Battles)
On Day 30, Big Brother announced the start of House Competitions, where the two Houses will compete for ten weeks for P150,000 at stake every week. The accumulated pot money for each House will be divided among the remaining housemates of each House after ten weeks. Group immunity from nomination was also put at stake with the seventh and eighth challenges.

The Luxury House residents are known as Team High Voltage and the Industrial House denizens are codenamed Team Wayuk.

Weekly tasks
Below is the list of weekly tasks performed by the housemates. Each of the tasks below are "all-or-nothing" tasks; failure would mean no budget for the next week. There are separate weekly tasks for each House.

The first weekly task was done by the first batch of housemates in the Slums.

Teams High Voltage and Team Wayuk were formed on Day 30. Weekly tasks prior to Day 30 were done by the same sets of housemates, with the exception of the very first weekly task. On Day 22, Jaz and Seichang transferred to the Luxury House and joined in doing Team High Voltage's extended 3rd weekly task. On Day 31, Luz and Seichang transferred to the Industrial House and became part of Team Wayuk.

Starting Day 71, the members of Teams High-Voltage and Wayuk who were drafted into the top 14 were made to do their weekly task as one group.

Joint Team (Wayuk & High Voltage)

 * Legend :
 * Weekly task was performed in the slums
 * Weekly task was performed in the industrial house
 * Weekly task was performed in the luxury house
 * Weekly task was performed in the outside world
 * Weekly task was performed in the hacienda


 * Notes :
 * : Reserve housemate Carlo lost the 4th task on purpose as part of his secret task as a mole.
 * : This task was extended to the Luxury House after the fish flew away from the Slums during its first hour, hence, becoming the team's weekly task for two weeks. Big Brother declared the task a failure because Fifi's tailfin touched the floor frequently.
 * : Big Brother declared the task a success because the Luxury housemates ignored nine of 14 distractions.
 * : The Luxury and Industrial housemates earned PHP71,500 and PHP48,600, respectively, for charity which resulted a success for both their weekly tasks.
 * : By the time accumulation was halted at around 9:30pm on Day 30, 20,959 "Likes" were posted. The target of 14,000 "Likes" was already reached at around the afternoon of Day 29.
 * : Five of the six contraptions were successful - two from Team High Voltage and three from Team Wayuk.
 * : The success was assured after the nominees of the week got 20 out of 20 answers correct in a challenge to match each housemate's picture with the proper Chinese characters in the right sequence.
 * : The task was declared a partial success because the housemates were recognized during the trip at some point.
 * : The task was declared a failure because only one housemate (Paco) sat on the throne.

Head of Household Competitions
Housemates from each houses will compete against each other, and the winner/s of the competition will be each house's HOH for week. The HOH will be granted immunity in the coming nomination.


 * Notes :
 * : Paco did not participate in the challenge, but was declared as HoH to protect his status as house player.
 * : Since Paco was the only one to sit on a special throne reserved for the Big Winner, he was declared the HoH.
 * : The M5 House Players were explicitly told by Big Brother to pick Paco as HoH to protect his status as house player.

Overview
The housemate first mentioned in each nomination gets two points, while the second gets one point. The percentage of votes shown is the percentage of votes to save unless otherwise stated. Each house would field at least the highest two point gatherers to the list of nominees.

During Week 1, all 13 official housemates and one unofficial housemate lived in the slums. On Day 8, Carlo, the unofficial housemate, became an official housemate, and a second batch of 15 official housemates entered the House. On Day 15, six reserved housemates entered the house. Among the six reserved, Reg and Deniesse are two to become official housemates. On Days 23 and 25, two reserved housemates entered. Seth became an official housemate on Day 26, and Ryan on Day 30.

On Day 8, Jaz, Kevin, Kim, Paco, Pamu and Seichang transferred to the Industrial House to be part of the Unli-day group. On Day 21, Diane, Joya and Wendy transferred to the Luxury House, while on Day 22, Jaz and Seichang transferred to the Luxury House and became part of the Unli-night group. The same day, the remaining Unli-night housemates transferred to the Luxury House when the Slums was demolished. On Day 31, Luz and Seichang transferred to the Industrial House to be part of the Unli-Day group. On Day 66, the two groups switched houses, with the Unli-day group residing in the Luxury House and the Unli-night group residing in the Industrial house.

On Day 71, all housemates were instructed to live in the Industrial House, with the top 14 housemates going to the Luxury House at specified periods of time in the following week. On Days 77 and 79, Deniesse and Slater became part of Team Wayuk. On Day 78, the Industrial House was closed. On Day 106, the top 10 housemates merged into one group.

Challenges granting immunity were held before nominations. For the first nomination, secret challenges were held in both houses which granted the winner(s) immunity from being nominated. From the second nomination until the fifth nomination, and from the tenth nomination onwards, Head/s of Household (HOH) competitions were held in both houses, where the winner/s will be granted immunity in the coming nomination. For the seventh and eighth nominations, House Competitions also have group immunity in the coming nomination put at stake.

For this season, former housemates chosen by Big Brother were asked to come back as House Players, as indicated in the nominations table. The Day numbers indicate the day the house players entered the house. Paco, who was evicted on Day 106, did not leave the house and was tasked to be a house player. On Day 141, he was reinstated as an official wildcard housemate. Kigoy and Luz re-entered on Day 121 as part of the M6 twist, with Kigoy being Forcibly re-evicted on Day 124 and Luz re-evicted on Day 127. Seichang, who was evicted on Day 127, did not leave the house until Day 134.

Starting the 13th eviction, the "Power of One" rule was implemented wherein the public may only vote once per day per Sim card. Overnight voting was also done during the 6th, 8th, 14th and 15th nomination rounds, as well as the Big Night. Hour-long voting was done during the final nomination round.

Table
Legend:
 * Grey names indicate Unli-Night housemates living in the slums
 * Red names indicate Unli-Day/Team Wayuk housemates
 * Blue names indicate Unli-Night/Team High Voltage housemates
 * Black names indicate Top 10 remaining housemates
 * Automatic nomination (due to violation(s) committed, failure of task, reserved housemate evictions)
 * Granted immunity (due to a successful completion of a "Secret Task", a challenge winner.)
 * Head of Household

S–E voting system result
Below is the eviction voting result from the first to fourth eviction round. This voting system was stopped after the fourth eviction round.


 * Legend :
 * Red names indicate housemates living in the industrial house
 * Blue names indicate housemates living in the luxury house

Christmas nomination
On Day 51, the housemates were asked to nominate who they think deserves to get a gift from Big Brother for Christmas. The six recipients, together with the other housemates, must work together to get the gifts. The housemate first mentioned in each nomination gets two points, while the second gets one point.


 * Legend :
 * Red names indicate Unli-Day/Team Wayuk housemates
 * Blue names indicate Unli-Night/Team High Voltage housemates

Mock nominations
For the 12th and 13th Nominations, the housemates underwent mock nominations before the normal nomination process.


 * Nominated Housemates
 * Head of Household

Ideal Big Four Lists
On Day 149, Big Brother ordered the remaining five housemates to make their ideal Big Four list (from first to fourth place) for the upcoming Big Night using a podium in the living room.

Big Night at the Grandstand
On March 31, 2012, 154 days after the season started, at the Quirino Grandstand, Slater Young was declared the Big Winner after amassing 40.02% of the votes which was taking home two million pesos cash and other special prizes. Leaving before him were Second Big Placer Pamu with 21.49% of the votes which receives one million pesos cash, Third Big Placer Biggel with 21.39% of the votes which receives half a million pesos cash and Fourth Big Placer Paco with 17.10% of the votes which receives 300,000 pesos cash. Slater thus earned the distinction of being the first male winner of a regular season four years after Ruben Gonzaga was declared as the first male winner of the entire franchise. The Big Night voting was only done overnight, with the Power of One rule in effect. This is also the first and only season wherein only vote percentages are shown and not the actual number of votes. The theme of the Big Night is Filipino style.

This table shows the summary of votes as obtained by each of the Big 4 in the Big Night.