After the first episode of Big Brother Reindeer Games we’ve got a better idea of how this series is going to work. If you missed the BBRG premiere episode or just didn’t follow it closely here is a review of how Reindeer Games will work.
An important caveat upfront is that the Big Brother Santa warned us and the HGs that the rules could change every day. So while it’s running on certain terms for the first episode we could see some tweaks as it goes, but I expect each round will follow a similar structure. At least until we get to the endgame of the Reindeer Games phase.
There were three rounds of competitions in the show and I expect we’ll see that for the next several episodes before things switch over to the tournament mode. The first competition was a puzzle, in the first show it was a word puzzle to identify a song, which gave the winner an advantage and the opportunity to give a disadvantage. Britany won the power, which lightened her round two by one task, and assigned the punishment to Cody, who had one extra task to deal with in round two.
Round two was the Jingle Bell Brawl, basically the backyard set up we’re used to with HGs scrambled around to be the first to slap their buzzer. This challenge will vary from show to show, but it was the usual fare you’d expect from Big Brother. The Naughty/Nice power from the first round ended up not being much of a factor for either contestant, but it could in the right combination. In last night’s show the winner was Frankie and that gave him safety and the opportunity to basically pick two nominees for elimination.
No voting this time but there’s still the equivalent with the big competition winner naming two other players to be in the hot seat with one of them going home. This time around Frankie picked Xavier and Cameron which sent them to the Santa Showdown, an arena where two enter and one goes home. This time around that honor fell on Cameron who was defeated by Xavier and a fairly tough puzzle challenge. Before Cameron was sent out he did get to pick a present from under Santa’s tree that could range from a trinket to $5K. Cameron picked the Jelly of the Month Club, and “that’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.”
Overall this looks like it could be a fun alternative to the usual long, drawn out Big Brother season. It does bum me though that we aren’t getting this collection of HGs for a slightly longer winter season that I thought we might get. Something like six weeks would have been a good gap fill for CBS as they come off the strike downtime, but not so long that we’d be exhausted from it. Anyway, we’re off to a good start and looking forward to the rest of the Big Brother Reindeer Games!
