‘Big Brother 16’ debate: Is this the dullest season ever?

Every season with “Big Brother,” there tend to be many who come out of the woodwork with proclamations of “this is the worst season ever.” It happened a lot in season 12, then in season 13, and then after skipping a year, it was back in season 15. We started covering the show extensively in season 11, and there have only been two seasons (that one and season 14) where we weren’t hearing that.

We are not here to bury this as the worst season of the show ever, mostly because we don’t feel like that is the case. We did have some likable players in Zach and Donny, and Nicole can also be added to the mix there. Pre-jury boots like Amber and Brittany were nice, but had some bad breaks come in their direction. Also, we don’t have a million racist remarks dominating the news cycle. All of these are pluses.

What we will question right now is this: Is this the most boring season ever? We feel like there is a distinction between a boring season and the worst one, and it includes some of the following.

1. There is very good gameplay this year on the part of Derrick, who we would be willing to call the third-best winner ever (behind only Dan and Dr. Will) if he manages to pull off the victory. It’s true that he is playing with a lot of clueless people, but he got rid of the few who did have some sort of mind for the game like Donny and Nicole (soon to be twice). Derrick’s just not fun TV, and he lies to the Diary Room and that keeps us from really liking him.
2. The fact that an alliance like the Detonators (plus Caleb) has stuck together through the end is remarkable. That’s interesting to watch maybe in the edited-together packages on the shows, but it makes the live feeds incredibly dull.
3. Production has put together some good competitions this time, and even included some celebrity guests. Not all of their twists have worked, but they have tried to make things fun at least occasionally.
4. Finally, we prefer a boring winner to a truly awful winner. Can you imagine what would have happened last year had Spencer or GinaMarie won the game? The former actually did have a decent strategy, but the public hatred for the two would have incited internet riots.

In the end, what we’re left with this season is something that probably looked very good on paper, but it shows that “Big Brother” is not a completely rigged show. If it was, things would be much more exciting now and popular players would still be in there. We are curious still to see who wins, and imagine that the next few weeks will be thrilling once Nicole is gone.

It’s just unfortunate that however this season ends, it will be married by a few weeks of what has to be the most lifeless house in the history of the show.

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Photo: CBS