Any fan of Big Brother has come to love the phrase “expect the unexpected,” so perhaps a relatively quiet first week of Big Brother season 22, or the second edition of Big Brother All Stars, isn’t terrible. In fact, maybe the biggest surprise of all is that CBS managed to successfully launch the show in the middle of a pandemic during our summer of Coronavirus.
BB22 is back with some of our favorites and some odd choices. The sixteen house guests we’re quarantined with this summer include Tyler (season 20), Enzo (12), Cody (16), David (21), Ian (14), Kaysar (6 and 7), Kevin (KC) (11), and Memphis (10), Christmas (19), Bayleigh (20), Dani (8 and 13), Da’Vonne (17 and 18), Janelle (6, 7, and 14), Keesha (10), Nicole A (21), and Nicole F (16 and 18). It will be interesting to see if this will set up a “old school vs new school” alliances, as we’ve seen in more recent reality seasons of Survivor and The Challenge, or if group dynamics of being quarantined will forge new friendships and alliances.
So what’s different about BB22? Unmasked host Julie Chen Moonves had to introduce the contestants in small groups who had masks on as she stood far from them (to socially distance herself before they entered the house). As soon as they entered the house, they were allowed to take off their masks. They only put their masks back on when they exit the house and are interviewed by Chen Moonves again.
That created the first gender inequality moment of the season. After entering in groups of four and scurrying around the house to look for a clue, contestants had to run outside and compete in the Head of Household competition, which involved moving a ball through a giant maze table. The problem is the groups with all women got clues from rooms that involved moving the ball to the end of the maze, while groups with all men got clues from rooms that involved moving the ball to the middle or beginning. This created more male winners—and made it more likely a man would become the first HoH. How CBS didn’t catch this in pre-production is astounding, particularly in a reality competition where gender often shapes alliances and is critical in the show.
The first twist of this season was the Safety Suite. Each player can go into this special room of the house only once during the game—but if they win the “safety” competition, they guarantee safety for themselves and a “plus one” — one other house guest who is also safe for the week. Sure enough, Janelle and Kaysar were fearful they might be nominated this week so both opted for the Safety Suite competition. After Kaysar won, he picked Janelle as his “plus one.” This foiled Head of Household Cody’s plan, as he was thinking about nominating Kaysar and Janelle. So the Safety Suite twist proved quite fortuitous in the first week.
With Cody (ugh!) winning the Head of Household competition, he nominated Kevin and Keesha. The Power of Veto competition was a pretty lackluster, unoriginal fruit stacking competition that Enzo won. It was great to see Enzo win but he wasn’t about to change the nominations this early in the game and start any drama, so it didn’t make for very exciting television.
We got very few conspiracy theories or debates around the house—as it seemed everyone was pretty set with sending Keesha home. And sure enough, it was a totally unanimous vote. While Kevin is more entertaining to watch, it’s frustrating that an “old school” player is going home. It has the feeling of the first few weeks of the most recent Survivor season when the older winners were voted off early. Hopefully, that will not happen here or fans will be upset.
At least the house itself looks good. Julie warned us there are rooms we haven’t seen and different rooms would open “throughout the summer.” The décor is typical BB, but there are comic-style art deco sketches of past BB contestants on the wall, an homage to the hall-of-fame type players who have made the show so popular and entertaining, and these current contestants seem to enjoy finding their friends and enemies on the walls.
The most interesting moment of the week was when the door to the “Have Not” punishment room didn’t open on live TV. Chen Moonves kept telling the contestants to “push harder” but it still didn’t open—and they realized it was locked! (Oops! Some intern probably got fired.) You get a sense there is less staff involved in production this time around due to safety/quarantine measures. So CBS just went to commercial and sent the house guests back to the living room. A very 2020 moment.
So it was a sleepy week. But in this summer of Covid, it’s nice to have BB back, and it’s likely with a cast of all stars that things won’t stay so peaceful for much longer.
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