Season 15 is now in the books. Andy won handily. He killed Gina Marie in the Q and A. He had great answers. I didn't so much like his constant pandering (I love you guys!), but beyond that his answers were clear, concise, and didn't shy away from his backstabbing, which seems to be what everyone had a problem with. He owned it. Am I a little sad that Spencer didn't win? Sure. But in the end Andy did play the better game, so kudos. And judging by his Twitter, he has been having a grand ol' drunken time back at home. Good for you. You earned it.
Some big news at the tail end of the season was the imminent departure of Executive Producer Allison Grodner. Many people are probably happy about this. It seems that whenever there is a bad twist, a returning player, a batch of house guests that people don't like, AG usually takes all the heat. I'm not going to bash AG. I honestly have no idea who is responsible for every decision made on the show. Not only that, despite the fact that I hate bad twists and returning house guests, I still love Big Brother. And despite the casting of Elissa this season, and allowing America to decide anything, let alone who goes up on the block or has secret power, this was a great season. We had a lot of house guests who were playing and strategizing their little hearts out. In fact, I don't recall a season where so many people were trying to stay two steps ahead of each other. It made for messy viewing and way too many alliances (and stupid alliance names), but I still enjoyed it.
People are hoping that since AG is leaving, that there will be changes galore upcoming. No more twists! No more returning house guests! No more casting only young, beautiful people! Honestly I don't see many changes coming down the pipeline. And why would they want to re-invent the game or change too many things? The show gets great summer ratings.
Twists. I hate them. Never have liked them. And I don't mean additions to the game, like when they introduced HOH in season 1, or when they introduced the Veto. I mean having twins play as one person. I mean having an ex or family member in the house. I mean past house guest pairs. I mean coaches. I can do away with all that. It's nothing more than a distraction, or in the case of the coaches, a way to bring back former players for like a third or fourth time. Seriously, please stop putting Mike Boogie on my TV. But as much as I hate them , I doubt they will stop coming up with them.
A quick aside: I do have to give kudos to the producers this season for not having a Coup De' Tat, a Diamond Veto, and a Pandora's Box. For that I just have to say THANK YOU!!!
Where was I? Oh yeah. Twists will not go away. I'm sure they feel they have to have some new twist to keep it fresh and keep bringing people in. I don't agree with that thinking, but I also don't have a job in Hollywood. But look at The Amazing Race. That show has had the same formula season in and season out, with the rare addition of a Speed Bump or what have you. They don't start every season telling the people racing "Oh, hey! Guess what? This season you have all switch teammates!" or something as silly as that. Unfortunately I doubt Big Brother will ever just cut the twists.
Returning house guests. I don't see this ever changing. I think this last season is as close as we will get to a completely fresh cast of new players. Even beyond the All Stars seasons, they will probably always now have some sort of returning player in some capacity. Hell, it works for Survivor. I don't even watch that show anymore, but I know that they keep bringing back the same people. Come on, Rupert. Give up the dream already! But people love returning players. They like the familiarity.
I hate returning players. They always have this been-there-done-that attitude about the game. Listening to them talk on the feeds is like listening to insider baseball, when you don't even watch baseball. They all think they know how to do everything and how to play the game, even though most of them haven't even won the game. Some of them just look like they are tired of even being there.
I like a batch of fresh players who are new to the game and excited to play it. I don't want former players even mixed in with them for the new players to latch onto. Not only that, they feed the former players ego by geeking out over them. Most former players have a hard time letting go and moving on with their lives. This doesn't help.
Once again, I am not working in Hollywood. And after all the controversy from last season, they will probably have former house guests in there if for no other reason but to keep the newbies in line.
Holy cow, I have been rambling on! A total stream of thought mess, too, so I apologize if that was hard to read. I want to talk more about cast diversity and why you will have house guests sexing up the joint from here on out, but I'll save that for a later post.
Hopefully I won't wait another month for the next one.
