“Big Brother” 25, a problematic return to form

PHOTO: Feature image of CBS’ “Big Brother”

By Sean Campbell

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Heading into the jury phase, CBS’s reality TV show Big Brother’s 25th season represents a return to form from a gameplay perspective. However, the season is less watchable due to problematic cast behavior and questionable production decisions.

“Big Brother” is a social-strategic game with 24/7 live feeds watching everything the players do. Each week, based on the results of physical or mental competitions, two players are nominated for eviction where the remaining players vote on which one will be removed from the house. At the end of the game the last seven players to be voted out decide which of the last two players remaining deserves to win.

In just the first week of the season, contestant Luke Valentine used a racial slur, eventually leading to his ejection from the game. Valentine has never publicly apologized for his actions, opting to criticize the way his ejection was handled on the show.

Contestant Cameron Harding repeatedly referred to fellow contestant Reilly Smedley as similar to his real life daughter, yet continuously flirted with her, staining his rather impressive underdog run.

The big production twist of the season, having “Survivor” legend Cirie Fields play the game alongside her son Jared Fields, has been overpowered by his problematic behavior. Jared told his showmance Blue Kim he had to “start thinking about women as real people and not objects” before going on the show. 

The production team has also made some questionable decisions this season. When expelling Valentine, they cited a “no tolerance policy” for derogatory slurs in the house, yet when Jared was caught using a slur they switched to a selective approach, keeping him in the game. This has also led fans to question the implementation of the scary week battle back, which was conveniently placed at a time where Jared would almost certainly be leaving the game, giving him a chance to re-enter.

The pace of the season has been extremely slow with two non-elimination weeks already (four and eight). The jury, the group of people that vote for one of the final two contestants at the end, won’t begin until the final 9 elimination on day 72 out of 100, the latest in the show’s history. Many mid game players like Izzy Gleicher and this week’s likely boot Felicia Cannon will not get to be on the jury despite their massive presence on the season. 

If you can get past all that, the gameplay this season has been the most dynamic of recent years. For the past eight seasons, Big Brother has been dominated by a group of young, conventionally attractive players that align at the start and win all the competitions to get to the end unscathed. The shift away from that this season has been a breath of fresh air.

The split house of the first 3 weeks, where two factions were actively targeting each other, was exciting to watch. Then fan favorite Cirie used her excellent social game to take control of the game, manipulating nearly the entire house into trusting her. That was until Harding made one of the biggest moves in the show’s history by flipping on the power players and eliminating Cirie’s closest ally Gleicher in 12th place, followed by her son Jared in 11th.

The season has not slowed down. Following Jared’s eviction, Harding defeated him in a competition to re-enter the game during the scary week battle back. Since then he has won every competition he has competed in creating an interesting underdog to play off of the powerful group of Cory Wurtenburger, America Lopez, Matt Klotz and Jag Bains. Wildcard’s Cirie and Mecole Hayes are working to split up that majority group, while outsiders Bowie Jane Ball and Kim continue to fight to stay in the game.

The ever shifting dynamics this season will likely lead to an unpredictable and exciting finish to what has thus far been an above average season.