Why CBS’s “Big Brother” Could Be So Much Better

Posted on September 23, 2007 in Entertainment

Originally posted on August 3, 2007

Back in 2000, CBS sparked the reality TV phenomenon with their still-popular show, Survivor. Riding on Survivor’s success, each of the major networks began creating reality shows left and right, looking for the next big hit. CBS took part, launching the US version of just weeks after the first season of Survivor concluded.

The original season of the show bears little resemblance to the Big Brother on television today. The internet feeds were free, the houseguests were relatable, and the focus was more on watching people interact with one another in a house rather than strategy and gameplay. That season, America voted, every week, to evict one of the houseguests that were nominated for eviction.

In season two, the show underwent a major overhaul, mostly for the better. The show became more Survivor-like, with the houseguests voting to evict one of the two nominees each week, effectively creating a strategy competition. The show has not deviated significantly from the format, and likely never will.

However, anyone who has watched the show from the beginning can note the less than desirable changes and trends that have developed between the season two and the current eighth season.

With the exception of the show’s seventh season, which featured a collection of “All-Stars” from the first six seasons, there has been a considerable shift in casting. Initially, all of the houseguests were typical, everyday people. But each year, there are more and more houseguests that can be considered “fake,” and many are clearly selected primarily based on their appearance. It is to the point that many Big Brother fans have consistently expressed that the current season eight cast is the worst one to date, and many fans have no favorite player, as they legitimately “hate them all.” Of course, this trend can be seen on just about every long-running reality show, but with Big Brother’s premise of watching the houseguests 24/7 via the live feeds, the issue of a personality challenged cast affects Big Brother more than every other show.

Unfortunately, casting issues aren’t the only problems plaguing the show. One of the biggest flaws I see in the show’s design is the competitions.

Every competition on Big Brother is held within the confines of the “house” (which is, of course, a CBS studio). The vast majority of them are held in the extremely limited space of the backyard area. Loyal viewers have probably noticed that almost every “Power of Veto” or “Head of Household” competition falls under one of two categories: trivia or endurance. These have become so repetitive that the competition designers try to add silly twists and surprises to them in hopes of sparking interest, and these twists often are lackluster, or suffer from equipment malfunctions.

The simple solution here would be to build a third area for the show, one made solely for the competitions. It could be as simple as an adjacent or nearby warehouse where the production crew could really get creative. If I were the much-loathed Allison Grodner, the executive producer of the show, I would also bring in competition designers from Survivor (who have proven they are excellent at their job) to try and revamp this brutally lacking part of Big Brother.

For the “All-Stars” season, the show introduced a new twist: Big Brother Slop. Essentially, there would be food competitions once a week and the houseguests on the losing side would be forced to eat only the oatmeal-like slop until the next competition. The clear driving force behind this is to cause half of the house to become irritable, leading to tension and fights for “good TV.”

Here’s the problem with slop: it was introduced for the “All-Stars,” adding more of a challenge for the players who had already proven once to be good at the game. That’s fine. However, it should have stopped there. This eighth season, we’re seeing no good come of the slop. If anything, it’s a detriment to those viewers who tune into the live feeds only to be presented with a bunch of people whining about how they can’t eat whatever they’d like.

The resolution to this clear: do away with the slop and consistently do the food competitions where the houseguests work as a team to win various food groups for the week. It unites the house and gives the viewers something to watch that is centered around watching people have fun instead of working against each other.

Every year, the producers of Big Brother come up with some big twists that will “shake up the house.” This time around, the show introduced “America’s Player.”

One houseguest is “playing for America” and is given three tasks every week. Generally, these tasks have been “who do you want nominated,” “who do you want evicted” (out of the nominees), and a third, usually silly, task.

However, this twist, I believe, is a miserable failure.

Being “America’s Player” has done nothing for the selected houseguest (Eric Stein) except for hinder his gameplay. He MUST vote to the evict whoever America selects, and for the past two weeks, that player has been the opposite of the one that the house has voted out. He is in a tough situation where he is trying to play his game as he intended to before being informed that he was “America’s Player,” while having to complete tasks that make him perform actions that go against what he and his alliance plan to do. Eric, if he was not a part of this twist, would likely make it very far in the game.

Instead, as the game is progressing, he is beginning to be outed as the rogue vote, and it will be extremely difficult for him to remain in the game for very long considering this fact.

Better alternatives would have been a producer ‘mole,’ or even better, an extra vote from America at each eviction, without placing the voting burden on a houseguest who just wants to play their game.

A much more minor issue, but an issue nonetheless, deals with the internet feeds. Very often, the feeds will cut away from what is going on in the house and will go to an animated visualization and the audio will shift to the show’s theme song. This is done to hide things from the live feed viewers, such as the production crew talking to the houseguests, what is going on at crucial game moments such as “Power of Veto” competitions, or the houseguests talking about something that goes on behind the scenes. Those that pay for the feeds are doing so to get an inside scoop, and will often watch the show anyways. There should be much more attention paid to the desires and opinions of the fans that are die-hard enough to shell out the extra cash to watch what is going on in the house.

It is disappointing that television networks are so focused on cheap tricks and gimmicks that they don’t really invest time and money into truly developing and improving shows like Big Brother. It has major potential to become a much higher-quality and more entertaining show, but chances are that it will end sooner rather than later if serious improvements aren’t made to it.

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