We see it time and again at this stage of a Big Brother season. Unanimous eviction votes are a staple of the show in the first few weeks. Fear is the primary factor in these early blowout votes, with two of the three evictions on BB28 being unanimous, while the other was a 12-1 decision against Rome.
Going against the house and potentially sinking your game is far too big a risk for most houseguests. That leads to boring evictions and far from ideal television for fans and makes a producer’s job of creating suspense for the eviction episode nearly impossible, seeing as there are live feeds.
Solving this problem, however, may be easier than we think…
Julie Chen-Moonves should stop revealing Big Brother vote counts
Big Brother has always preached the motto “Expect the Unexpected.” The good news for the Big Brother production crew is that there’s a very simple twist that seems foolproof and will likely end unanimous votes altogether.
The eviction process on Big Brother has rarely changed through the years. But what if Julie Chen Moonves didn’t announce the final vote tally? Sure, that’d create more paranoia, but isn’t that what we want as fans?
Not having the eviction results read out loud might be exactly what audiences and producers need. It means if a vote doesn’t go the way you’d thought, you must up your game and get to the bottom of everything. Even if a vote goes your way, this would still work. The idea of Julie simply saying who’s been evicted would be enough to get minds racing and wondering if everyone followed the plan, or if something big is coming.
Like any competitive reality show, fans and producers want to keep those in the house on their toes, and this element feels like it’d do exactly that. We’re into Season 28, and that’s yet to be experimented on the show. After this long, it seems clear that most houseguests aren’t going to go against the grain if they know the vote count will come out.
It shouldn’t be too much of an adjustment for Julie to make, even with her reputation for being very robotic. Even telling the houseguests ahead of time that the vote count won’t be announced might be enticing to contestants. At the end of the day, it’s something worth exploring. As Janelle Pierzina said during Season 27, far too many houseguests are afraid to make big moves. This twist might change that.
Big Brother airs on CBS on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at 8 p.m. ET while it streams on Paramount+.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK THIS TWIST WOULD ELIMINATE THE AMOUNT OF UNANIMOUS EARLY VOTES ON BIG BROTHER?
