A new Big Brother 18 twist is now in play and it’s already having a strong impact on the game with the Block adding a new face to its list of potential victims this week. But while we may know how it changes the game we still don’t even know its name! (Cue The Doors.)
Update: CBS has revealed the comp’s name as “Big Brother Road Kill.” No, seriously. Details below.
During the preseason executive producers Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan revealed there would be a new competition and a new ceremony to follow that would all become part of Sunday’s show which typically only features the nominations events. Now with the Battle of the Block gone from Sunday episodes there’s a new game in town to fill its spot.
To get you caught up, here’s what Grodner & Meehan teased was ahead with this new twist:
Meehan: We need to keep the stakes high in the Sunday show because we didn’t want to go back to Have Not competitions.
Grodner: You want competitions that have stakes, that really mean something. This new competition really does that. So the nominations falls somewhere in the middle and then this competition and then, you’ll see.
Meehan: A new ceremony at the end.
This new twist would take the place of both Have-Not competitions and the Battle of the Block, the latter was already replacing the former because apparently they really hate Have-Not competitions and prefer them to be punishments on a turn-based approach. Blerg.
Here’s how it will work, according to details released by People. HGs will individually perform a challenge in a fake RV that’s wheeled in to the backyard each Friday. Now that should really help with the setup and clean up time.
Once inside the “RV” the HGs will have to change out of their clothes. Again, yes, seriously. They’ll be timed and must keep three buttons, spread out over the seat, depressed while changing from their clothes in to a swimsuit. If they release one button time speeds up a little. Two buttons and it’s twice as fast. Three buttons, well you get it.
Afterwards each of the HGs will open a tackle box to be informed if they were a loser or the winner. If they win then they’ll name their target at a later time.
So until Sunday’s show we see this new twist in action for BB18, but as always the Live Feeds are way ahead of the broadcast episodes leaving us with the cart before the horse as the spoilers have already been revealed. Here’s what we know so far about the twist which probably lets us piece together most of the details we need to know.
A new competition will be held each week on Friday where someone will secretly win the power to, again, secretly nominate a third Houseguest. Now nominations aren’t usually made until Friday night, but Grodner stated above it would appear in the Sunday show after the nominations. It’d be overly complicated to cut these events out of order so let’s assume nominations will be moved up in the day.
If nominations move up then there’s still a time crunch to get this “new twist” competition completed and cleaned up so production can get on with the Power of Veto comp which is usually held on Saturday. While production is working on that the Houseguests can be trapped inside so the secret power holder can go to the DR and make his or her decision. Once the third nominee has likely been named in the DR there will be a new ceremony to add a third face to the Block.
Sound familiar at all? Well it’s a lot like the BBMVP twist from BB15, but it also has some important differences. Back then viewers voted to give one HG the power to secretly nominate a third HG. Unfortunately for the rest of the house production had done some stunt casting with Rachel Reilly’s sister, Elissa. That gave her and her allies a hugely unfair advantage in the numbers game to secure this power and rout their opponents.
This time around the power must be won. Excellent. I don’t necessarily care for a third nominee, but if it’s earned and not given then I won’t protest too much.
Oddly, in that People article CBS claims “the winner will be able to impact the game like never before” which isn’t true from what we’ve heard so far considering it’s the same game impact as in BB15. Guess we’ll have to see on Sunday’s show.
How has it worked so far? Well the first round of the twist’s competition has already been held, a third nomination has been made, and now the house is filled with accusations and paranoia over who did it. Now that I like.
Want to find out who won the twist’s power and who is the first third nominee on Big Brother 18? Check our spoilers page for links to all the details. Then on Sunday (8/7c) we’ll see just how it all went down.
What do you think of the new Big Brother twist? Good move by production or an unnecessary distraction from the core Big Brother game? Share your thoughts below.