Board 8 > CBS Reality Show Topic: Your One Stop Shop for BB23 and More!

(+) Yeah! (+)

I did enjoy this week how the two most vocal Brent haters in the house ended up being the two on the block. It's fun to see instant gameplay rammed into people who blindly vote out a meatshield for non-strategic reasons.

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Troyzan posted...

I did enjoy this week how the two most vocal Brent haters in the house ended up being the two on the block. It's fun to see instant gameplay rammed into people who blindly vote out a meatshield for non-strategic reasons.

I voted you out and I still got to the end, you know.

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What's with all these zero vote getters bragging about stuff? Does Albert want to chime in next?

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HoH is... .....Derek X.....

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BB: Feeds spoilers, of course. This week is going to be interesting. DX promised he wouldn't put Alyssa up during the comp, and The House wants to split her and Christian. While I want him to gun for the Cookout, I want Xavier and Tiffany safe among them. I haven't seen tonight's episode yet. Will soon. I do enjoy this cast, as I don't dislike anyone. Faves are Xavier, Claire, Tiffany, DX, Britini.

Survivor SA: I'm amazed at how the pairs were all split by original tribes, which screwed Zamba since I think Santoni and Anesu would've voted out a Renier/Tyson or Smash/Wardah pair. Nicole was a total moron to pick her Zamba friends for the reward - THAT sealed their fate since Vuna got a chance to talk, just the six, and thus solidified them under this extraordinary circumstance. Reiner's display was atrocious play. He got so defensive and insecure about people calling his bluff. WHY didn't he make a fake idol to show people? He could've whipped it out quickly and intimidated them all right before they voted, instead of going on and on and on. It was such blatant lying since the only reason to rant was to stall. In the end, it's fitting that Renier and Amy were eliminated together - their storyline was tied since the start, so yeah. Still rooting for Santoni and Chappies - the only two who add color of any kind.

AUS: Through episode 5. Ep 4 "Whoever flipped is gone next" is the perfect thing to say when on the block in a tie... if you want your allies to turn on you. Shannon was already unsure - not sure why, since we weren't privy to that. But if Benny was going to rampage, it was best to kill him, so they did. Favorites are Shannon, Kez, Hayley, Gerald, and... George. George is more anti-hero than villain, but he's the kind of character I enjoy (how he is only 31 y/o?). I LOVE George just walking into camp sporting the idol - it's flashy and ballsy, sure, but he had nothing to lose. At best, he gets the vote off him for a round, and he can save the idol for next time (and MUST play it then); at worst, he does what he was going to anyway and play it (but alas, it was wasted). But since he's so focal, I barely know who half the Brains are, even after their second Tribal. They also get no rewards because - guess what? - all the rewards are physical. It's boring since most of the rewards have favored Brawn. Production didn't seem to think that through - whichever tribe a challenge favors tends to win it. HMMM. And they built an idol ATM just for Simon. WHY hide an idol outright in the reward? Too easy. This season is filled with sloppy play - so many people are barking out orders instead of asking the swing vote for their opinion. I also didn't like how the sequencing of the votes gave away that Mitch was a goner - AUS just does it that way every time, which ruins the impact of the vote. They can learn from SA. (I also wonder why George stopped trying to get Mitch out and it took Joey to do it.)
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Inviso posted...

Ultimately, it's just nice to have a season where I don't dislike anyone in the cast (except people who got booted in the first few weeks, for once). It's refreshing after the entitlement alliance of BB22, the racist alliance of BB21, the mactor alliance of BB20, the bully alliance of BB19, and the veteran alliance of BB18 sapped my enjoyment of those seasons for WEEKS.

Ranking my tolerance of these alliances...
1. BB21 Unde9able/Gr8ful/6 Shooters - Were never a very cohesive group from the beginning and by the time the jury phase hit they were largely fractured. While one of them still won, the outsiders were very much in the mix of things right up to the finale. I agree with Inviso that from basically Sam's boot through Tommy's boot (an astounding 8-week stretch), this season was actually fairly enjoyable.

2. BB18 Veterans Alliance - Another fairly fractured group that allowed some outsiders to slip through. Victor really came through for us and saved the second half of that season from being as bad as the rest of the ones in this stretch.

3. BB20 Level 6 - The pre-jury of this season was actually really enjoyable, and even as late as Faysal's HoH the outsiders had a shit ton of opportunities to come back and make it a game but squandered them all (the Hacker comp being the only piece that legitimately fucked them over), so they really had no one to blame but themselves.

4. BB19 Paul's Minions - The only full-fledged member of this alliance that I actively liked won the season, so there's that.

5. BB22 Committee - If we include Enzo as a member of this alliance which we may as well, they won literally every single HoH. The outsiders had 0 opportunity to come back and make it a game, they literally berated the outsiders as undeserving of being in the game, and any time any of them had to deal with the slightest inconvenience (being a Have-Not, losing a Veto comp, David's terrible gameplay ironically working in his favor half the time, etc) they bitched and whined and threatened to quit and their reward for all this was getting to comprise the entire final 7 and their boring-ass leader winning the whole season in a unanimous jury decision.

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This season has been really good, and based on spoilers for this week, chaos seems like it's going to reign once again.

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Guys just as a heads up... watch Australian Survivor this year. Just. Watch. It.

If you have to give up Big Brother for it, do that.
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That silence.

That threat

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Underleveled posted...

That silence.

That threat

That scene was great for both of them.

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Sara Beth is fucking stealing the show tonight.

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Christian would have SMOKED this Veto.

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This episode is amazing.

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That was truly better than anything from last season, and given the quality of the cast, more satisfying than anything since at least BB17.

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That was an absolutely excellent episode of Big Brother from start to finish.

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happy birthday!

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Assuming there isn't some last minute shake-up in the week's boot, here are my pre-jury rankings of the season thus far. Note, this contains Live Feeds commentary as well as content from the episodes:

1. Tiffany Mitchell (Up until the past few days, Tiffany has really held this house by the balls. We haven't had a really dominant female strategist in a long time, and it's just refreshing to see someone like her holding court. She's extremely emotional and messy though, which makes her more interesting than a standard gamebot. Essentially, she's the second coming of Vanessa, and I'm here for that.)

2. Derek Xiao (It's amazing to me that this clueless recruit was looking at a backdoor in week one, randomly won veto, and parlayed that and a second veto in week two into a solid position within the house. He just seems like an overall nice guy, and he's making a big move to take out Christian, which breaks up the monotony of house targets for the prior three weeks.)

3. Hannah Chaddha (It's cute that Derex and Hannah are aligned, because they're both similar in how they started their games: young and inexperienced and underestimated by the house. Hannah wasn't even solidly in the Cookout. But she's worked her way up the hierarchy, and she has this wonderful "no fucks given" attitude in how she deals with people. I'd say that's a positive overall.)

4. Britini D'Angelo (Her inability to contain her emotions is wonderful. She's been a pawn three times, and she's aware that she's a pawn all three times, yet she cannot help herself from breaking down. I love the wild card characters on the show, and we need more people like Britini.)

5. Sarah Beth Steagull (The first few weeks were all about her allegiance to Kyland, and she was low-key, but then she targeted Hannah, and suddenly her game has blown up. It's just kinda hilarious to see someone trying to be nice and trying to play the game, yet the reaction to her is VASTLY disproportionate to what she deserves. Her throwing the rest of the Kings under the bus was pretty great though.)

6. Alyssa Lopez (I find her running story of complaining about near-failures in comps to be amusing, but I also love how she's in that sweet spot of being intelligent enough to have a basic understanding of strategy, but bitchy enough that she can't utilize that intelligence to her full potential.)

7. Azah Awasum (She hasn't been a prominent part of the action thus far, but she's a great narrator, and her bitchy attitude is absolutely wonderful in contrast to the game talk all around her.)

8. Brandon "Frenchie" French (That first week was a completely hilarious trainwreck, entirely because of Frenchie. There's literally no reason things had to be as complicated as they were, yet he made a bizarre series of decisions that tanked his game and got him evicted by week two. That's a classic downfall, and we haven't seen something that chaotic since Devin in BB16.)

9. Christian Birkenberger (He went from me dreading him week one, to becoming kind of a goofy moron who wound up getting punked out pre-jury. He was a goofy character, and I can appreciate that. Plus, the Alyssa subplot has been hilarious, where she gets targeted for being in a showmance that Christian CLEARLY wants, but even though she goes along with it, she's nowhere near as invested as Christian is. It's a perfect amount of himbo energy.)

10. Xavier Prather (He's a bit too normal and rational for me to fully appreciate, especially in a house of messy and emotional players. But he cuts a good confessional, and he's charismatic when addressing the audience. He's looking like a strong winner contender at this point, and I'd be okay with that, especially since there's enough emotional for him to bounce off of that could prove interesting in coming weeks.)

11. Kyland Young (He was great in those first two weeks, but since then, he's largely faded to the background. He's still cute in his relationship with Sarah Beth though.)

12. Claire Rehfuss (She hasn't done a ton yet, other than be the token narrator for veto comps. But she has a good head on her shoulders, and she's largely aligned with the right people, so I can accept her for the time being.)

13. Whitney Williams (She seems nice enough, but she just didn't offer a whole lot to the dynamics of the season. I think she just got into Frenchie's Slaughterhouse alliance, and when that fell apart, she didn't really do anything other than bash Brent.)

14. Derek Frazier (It's hard to judge him, since he's largely inert and lays around the house all day. He has this massive fear of a women's alliance, which might manifest it into reality, but I just wish there was some consistent characterization to judge him by. It just feels like he's been lost without Frenchie to guide him.)

15. Brent Champagne (He was an arrogant, misogynistic asshole, and if he lasted longer, I'd absolutely hate him. but it's just so satisfying to watch him go home in week three, after being clowned on by the entire cast, all week long. It's a good downfall for a villain.)

16. Travis Long (He's basically a useless douchebro. He was slightly sexist and honestly, the promo bio stuff we saw kinda sucked. It came across like him trying to paint himself as the next Tyler. I'm just not a fan of mediocre casting choices, especially since we already have Christian to fill that same archetype.)

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When was the last time they left a Veto episode on a cliffhanger like that? Was it Faysal's HoH in BB20?

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They definitely had one recently, not this season, but maybe last year?

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Not that I especially want either nominee to go, but from a pure entertainment/excitement standpoint, if this ends with the blindside instead of the obvious boot, it will easily be the best week of normal BB I've seen (I started with BB18).

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I dont follow spoilers, but knowing that they gave all the time to not-sarah-beth, sarah beth is staying

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How much focus did Ramses get in his boot episode? Pretty sure it was heavily lopsided to "why Josh stays" instead of "why Ramses goes."

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so do the houseguests think somethings up if they go to commercial instead of going through the whole vote

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I don't think so. They do it on obvious votes all the time.

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I love that julie said "cast your vote to evict" slowly to Big D and he still said "I to evote Christian"

Claire the only one who doesnt do shout outs

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I love how classy this cast is. Everyone so far has taken their eviction as well as you can expect and hasn't acted bitter on their way out the door.

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BBCan9 Episode 7 ended on a veto cliffhanger

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GTM posted...

Claire the only one who doesnt do shout outs

I mean, she is a superfan, and she probably is as annoyed by them as many of us are. Shoutouts are fine for nominees giving speeches, especially if they're potentially leaving for Ponderosa, but not when people are vic-to-evoting.
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Or as a superfan like us, she has no friends to shout out

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Inviso posted...

9. Christian Birkenberger (He went from me dreading him week one, to becoming kind of a goofy moron who wound up getting punked out pre-jury. He was a goofy character, and I can appreciate that. Plus, the Alyssa subplot has been hilarious, where she gets targeted for being in a showmance that Christian CLEARLY wants, but even though she goes along with it, she's nowhere near as invested as Christian is. It's a perfect amount of himbo energy.)

For someone who was by far my least-favorite in the premiere, I definitely warmed up to Christian pretty well. I'd probably have him around 9th or 10th so far too.

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Durr

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My revised winner rankings (as of Sunday's episode):

Winner pick:
1. Xavier

Chances are still pretty good:
2. Hannah
3. Derek X

Still a shot but falling apart quickly:
4. Tiffany
5. Kyland
6. Claire

Chances are negligible:
7. Sarah Beth
8. Azah
9. Alyssa
10. Derek F
11. Brittini

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Man, Derek F has no idea how the terminology in this game works does he?

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RIP alyssa

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Even when Alyssa wins, she loses.

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So who HASN'T been on the block yet as of last night's episode? I think it should be:

Tiffany
Azah
Derek X

...is that it?

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I don't really care anymore.

Big Brother US as of late has been about one big alliance dominating everyone else. The last season to NOT have such an alliance was BB18. BB19 had Paul's Cult, BB20 had Level 6, BB21 had the Gr8ful H8ful, BB22 had the Committee, and BB23 has the Cookout.

What doesn't help is that the only one of these that was tolerable was Level 6, and that was because they actually had two members evicted pre-jury. The Gr8ful H8ful and Cookout are both highly racist and xenophobic, and both Paul's Cult and the Committee were sated with arrogant "cool kids table" types who condescended upon everyone else. Most of these cliques emit an off-putting superiority complex that undermined the show's watchability. I think production eggs these people on to "act cocky" or whatever so they can vilify them. It's getting annoying to see the synthesis going on that prevents these people from being compelling. There isn't any interesting drama anymore, either.

I honestly think this is it for me watching Big Brother. I don't know if the show has much of a future unless they find good ways to prevent it from being so damn predictable. It's not fun to watch. And the twists don't help - they exacerbate the show's predictability far more often than not.
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While I don't find the mindset of the Cookout to be racist, I will admit that they're starting to fall victim to the same unlikability trap as these other dominant alliances which is having this "how dare you" attitude towards anyone outside of their alliance having the nerve to actually try and play the fucking game (this attitude was particularly grating with Level 6 and the Committee).

As human beings we naturally gravitate towards people that are like us, where that's for similar personalities, interests, culture, life experiences, etc. In the case of the Cookout, their bond has always been based not on them being black, but certain cultural similarities and life experiences that they have all shared because they are black. And they have vocalized that explicitly from the start.

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Underleveled posted...

While I don't find the mindset of the Cookout to be racist, I will admit that they're starting to fall victim to the same unlikability trap as these other dominant alliances which is having this "how dare you" attitude towards anyone outside of their alliance having the nerve to actually try and play the fucking game (this attitude was particularly grating with Level 6 and the Committee).

As human beings we naturally gravitate towards people that are like us, where that's for similar personalities, interests, culture, life experiences, etc. In the case of the Cookout, their bond has always been based not on them being black, but certain cultural similarities and life experiences that they have all shared because they are black. And they have vocalized that explicitly from the start.

Plus 22 seasons of white dominance in casting, which leads to white dominance in game success. BB22 was the first time in almost 10 years where a black player made single-digit placements (as a result of four black players being cast). A group of people realizing "hey, we've gotten screwed over as a race for two decades, and this is the first time we can come together and really work to correct that" is not racist to me.

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Come on over to the dark side bbcan9 was fantastic

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I guess the biggest thing that puzzled me about the Cookout, and maybe livestream viewers can shed some light on this for me, is why Hannah wasn't included from the start, and why until recently some members considered the alliance to be 5+1 and not 6.

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I'm not sure what Tiffany's plan is. It's literally just DX and Cookout members that can go up as a replacement...

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derek x is so precious

I need to learn from him

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LMFAO Xavier

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Kyland got my hopes up, and then they were dashed QUITE expertly.

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Yeah when Kyland voted for Claire I thought they went through with the blindside and was stunned when Tiffany cast her vote.

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These are the most stupidly specific questions ever. They may as well have just randomized the HoH.

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Underleveled posted...

These are the most stupidly specific questions ever. They may as well have just randomized the HoH.

I'm fine with that. We need more crapshoot random HoHs so it's not just athletic comp beasts winning all the time.

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POLL: Which of these is more important to Big Brother, as a whole?
1. The Chenbot
OR
2. Clayton Halsey growling "Biiiiig Brotherrrrrrrr" at the start and end of each episode

Just a random thought.
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Chenbot.

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