Big Brother!  I started with an article on the history planned.  I changed to the dynamics in the house.  Yet, I realize that both are tied to the Rachel situation. More importantly, the situation is tied to the outcry on Twitter and X.  So why all the hate directed at the show’s executives.  Here we go!

Big Brother fans, you know the rules that began the show.  Originally established by John (Jon) de Mol, Jr. as a Dutch show in 1997, the premise was a social experiment.  I call it the mouse experiment that some sociologist use for illustration.  You put people who don’t know each other in a house.  You create one Head of Household (HoH) by a game.  You give the HoH the power to nominate two people for eviction.  They play a game with the HoH and three other people.  The game, the Power of Veto (PoV), begins the end of the present HoH’s reign.  If the PoV is won, they can save themselves or another nominee.  Campaigning begins to stay.  Vote by the housemates determines who leaves.  Simple, right.  Yeah, until this production company, Fly on the Wall, decides to incorporate Big Brother Reindeer Games without telling anyone.

Reindeer Games had mixed reviews.  It was a filler show for CBS one December.  I’ll be honest.  I saw Frankie Grande and ran.  I decided I’d rather watch the Hallmark Channel.  Nothing against Frankie.  I just didn’t need his over-the=top behavior as I prepared a church Christmas program.  Since that was such a short season, they played it with competition games, eliminating one at the end of each round.  Hmm!  Maybe that’s why I hated it so much!

Now, let’s get to the root of the problem: this year’s edition of Big Brother.  The powers-that-be, Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan, decided that a feature from a previous season was a hit (it wasn’t really) and incorporated it into this year’s game.  HoH now had to chose three.   The “Big Brother Block Buster” added a new game for just those three.  The “Block Buster” saved one person but the other two remained on the block.

This twist is fine only as long as you have more than 10 in the house.  When it gets down to 10, the players in veto are more limited and the social game goes out of the window.  I’m sure it was a way to stop the nine and ten member alliances but it causes new headaches when the cast is full and controlled by one player.   There can be no true alliances when the player joins all and takes out who he chooses.  When jury comes into play, the  real problems begin.

Add to that the old “Mastermind is going to cause mayhem and one will be eliminated tonight.”  This was not related to the house mates prior to entering the game as we learned from Will.  It was a complete surprise.  Rachel, who knows how the Reindeer Games worked, recognized what was coming.  The maze wheel is hard to turn and she knew the time limit wasn’t fair.  Add to that only five (or six) people could play with the best time becoming HoH.  Not completing the game in the time limit meant automatic explusion. 

As Ava (the preliminary winner) tells it, Rachel “grabbed and pulled” her into the room.  Rachel wanted to warn her but Ava got mad and wouldn’t listen.  Her attitude,  “No  one touches me” didn’t seem to apply to the rest of the season.  Ava just didn’t try to understand the dynamics.  Rachel saw it as a way to make Vinnie work for his place in the game.  Ava started the daisy chain of six with Vince who then took control of the picks.  He chose Lauren and made her promise to choose Morgan.  Morgan was to chose Kelley (another Vinnie favorite) but went against his orders and picked Rachel.  Rachel had  a little over three minutes which made the game harder.  She didn’t finish and was out. 

Thus Vinnie, the one who has controlled the game, controlled who left.  I honestly place the blame on Ava for not reading the room.  She had the chance to get Vinnie out but didn’t take it.  Vinnie knew he could run Lauren’s and Morgan’s  HoHs and made the choice  with the stipulation of order of picks.  The only good thing was Morgan had a spin and picked Rachel who didn’t have the time to finish.  Get the picture.  Once again, a competition was played  that kept Vinnie (who most people dislike) in control of the game.

Rachel has been the only one who tried to play the game as it was written.  She studied.  She calculated.  She helped weaker players.  But most of all, Vinnie was scared of her.  By eliminating Rachel at this point of the final three weeks, we have a bunch of whiners (I mean potential winners) left in the house.  What was really upsetting no campaigning, no vote.  Hey, they did promise us a “Julie interviews Rachel” for Thursday night.  Wonder if that would have happened if the negative posts on X and Blue Sky hadn’t come into play/??

Why was Ava motivated to chose Vinnie?  Cerrtainly not the volunteer element.  Ava says it is because Rachel almost yanked her arm off.  From what I saw, Rachel had her clothes folks.  Ava chose Vinnie because she thought he was a good one to keep her safe.  Vinnie has been anti-Rachel all game.  He, at least, has some sense of the game.  Ava, meanwhile, has gone the “Mean Girl” route and called Rachel terrible names (which I won’t repeat).

Truth!  This version of Big Brother will hurt the franchise.  It was designed because they didn’t have the time or were too lazy to do a triple elimination.  And, once again, we see the tendency of “favorties” winning.  I don’t know why they love Vinnie so much.  My zing for him is that the 1920’s want their moustache back!

Big Brother goofed this year.  The Hotel Mystere could habe been a fun game with clues and competitions centered around a hotel with victims eliminated by the jury (house mates).  I won’t call it Clue as I understand that is in development.  Yet, all the old tendencies are there.  The Taylor Hale win was a fluke that the powers that be didn’t want.  Other recent seasons have had winners that met the executives’ plans. 

CBS, please make Fly on the Wall return the game to its roots.  There are other ways for the mean alliances to fail.  Please listen to fans.  Viewership will fall if the show continues to take this tack.   I’ve watched since the Four Horsemen.  Is it right that I leave due to the Reindeer Games insertion?