Should ‘Big Brother 18’ feature any returning players at all? A talk on format

If you are a “Big Brother” fan and have spent the past 48 hours or so stalking social media, you’ve probably heard a number of different rumors already regarding what the theme could be, what the twists could be, and also who some potential returning players are. There are a lot of interesting names out there, and there are certainly a few people reporting them who we trust very much when it comes to sharing show info.

So why not discuss them further right now? Ultimately, much of it has to do with our philosophy this year of just waiting until Monday when the cast is released, and allowing what happens to ultimately happen. We don’t want to get excited about this person or that person being on the show, only to then realize that they’re not. We’re going to have all summer (seriously) to talk about plenty of these people.

What we do want to discuss for a moment is a commonality that has been there for almost every single rumored cast list that we’ve seen: Returning players. Is this the right move? There are a few different ways to look at this.

An All-Star season – Awesome. We don’t know what is production’s resistance to doing this, given that the last time we had a full All-Stars was more than a decade ago in season 17. A couple of years ago, we would’ve argued against this, but there’s a good enough pool of players and personalities now for there to be several successful permutations.

Half newbies / half returnees – A half-measure to quote Mike Ehrmantraut. It’s a completely unfair twist to new players, and the returnees are also going to dominate the show edit more than likely.

A few returnees – This concept worked on “Big Brother 14,” but we think that was a byproduct more of the four people who were cast as coaches more so than the format itself. There were so many ways that this twist could have gone like season 13, and the veterans just pulled over a few people once they were vulnerable and dominate the game. It’s certainly better than half and half, but fundamentally we’re lukewarm on the idea.

All newbies – To quote O-Town (which in turn makes us question our own sanity), we either want it all or nothing at all. “Big Brother All-Stars” was great; the majority of the all newbie seasons save for many 9 and 15 also were. We want the game to be 1) as fair as possible and 2) there to be relative parity when it comes to the presentation of the houseguests. It’s more organic, and since we’re here for the characters just as much as the strategy, we like the experiment element of it all that comes with not knowing if any of these people know how to play.

What’s your ideal format? Vote in the attached poll!

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