There’s a lot to be said about “Big Brother.” It is a reality show that, beyond its three weekly episodes, also streams a 24/7 live feed of its contestants as they compete for $750,000. It’s a thrilling concept, one that attempts to push reality TV to its extreme. As houseguests are voted out week after week in a process called “eviction,” they form alliances — and break them — trying to be the last one standing. It’s often hailed as more of a social experiment than reality TV, a shiny Los Angeles “Survivor” counterpart. But the start of its most recent season has proved that the crux of any reality TV show is its casting. And with “Big Brother,” the question is, how familiar should these players be with the game before they enter it?
“Big Brother” is played in a pretty consistent format. At the start of the week, players compete in a competition to be crowned head of household. Not only is the HOH safe for the week, but they are also responsible for making the nominations for eviction. Halfway through, players are also able to compete in a Veto competition — to win the Golden Power of Veto (the right to take someone down from the chopping block). Then, on Sunday, there’s a live eviction ceremony where the players who are not on the block vote for who to send home.
The core of any reality show is who is on it. The current players of “Big Brother” are a mix of people who’ve never seen the show before they found out they were going to be on it, self-professed die-hard fans and people who agree to the show to advance their social media careers. For a lot of modern contestants, the most valuable boon can often seem to no longer be the $750,000 prize, but becoming popular enough among fans that you can establish your own social media presence.
The bottom line is that a lot of these cast members don’t just not know how to play or have never seen the show; they also don’t really need to win. The first part of this deal isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Season 2, the first time the game was played with the current eviction format, birthed one of the most iconic “Big Brother” players — both entertainment and strategy-wise — of all time, the evil dermatologist Will Kirby. No one entering the house had seen the game played before, but the season is both fascinating and dramatic. Houseguests grapple with the constant perception that comes with the live feeds and being isolated from the outside world, and define what role morality should play in what is essentially a game — but a game that has life-changing money at stake. It’s one of the only seasons to fully live up to its social experiment claim, having a much more serious and emotional tone, a large part of this being due to none of the houseguests having any notion of how to cope with being in the surveilled house.
But only casting people who are superfans is also risky. A cast that holds all their cards to their chest from over-caution and meta-games through the show will not be interesting. Messy, entertaining gameplay and exciting emotional outbursts will not reliably come from people who have already learned the lessons of the past seasons, who know about the various strategies that have been established, like what a floater is and how to backdoor someone.
In some ways, casting complete rookies is more true to the original ethos of that second season. Like a doe walking for the first time, season 2, and the seasons that follow, are messy. Contestants were held at knife point, fights lingered and vetoes weren’t always used efficiently. To recapture that frenetic house dynamic, houseguests should be somewhat unaware of how the isolation, the live stream and the realities of the game tend to play out. If every season were full of complete rookies who reinvented the game each season, it could maintain that organic feeling that the second season — and stumbling first decade of the show — managed to create.
But, the catch-22 emerges. With a complete reset of the rules and recipes that are baked into the show, fans may find it hard to see any consistency or growth from season to season, hard to respect players who appear to have no knowledge of the history of the show they’re on and hard to find any value in a show whose own contestants are one foot in, one foot out.
They need people who want to win and who are willing to invest in the show at face value, without prioritizing their potential career outside the house. Producers need people who can build on the strategy of seasons past and use it in interesting ways, but also people who aren’t holding the show at arm’s length, too cautious and starstruck to make big moves or openly mock another player.
Season 27, the currently airing season, has attempted to reinvigorate the show with some of this classic, older “Big Brother.” Rachel Reilly (“The Amazing Race”), the iconic villain in season 12 and winner of season 13, has crossed the threshold once more, ready to claim the title as the first two-time winner. But she’s older and more mature, with less to prove and years of reality TV experience under her belt. She’s not as explosive as she once was. Her presence, for better or worse, has only emphasized how a season can be poisoned by casting non-fans, abandoning any relics of the seasons of strategy and tradition that built “Big Brother.”
So far, this house has seen middling and indecisive fans of the show, too in the middle to really bother rallying behind. While the initially large and loud players have quieted down, and the mid-season sets in, this ever-lengthy pre-jury phase of the game is the real test of what type of “Big Brother” players will last. This season has had its low points of strategy, but it seems that its steady rotation of power, and blend of people who know the game and people who have no idea what they’ve walked themselves into, will keep us on our toes.
Daily Arts Writer Cora Rolfes can be reached at corolfes@umich.edu.
