‘Big Brother 18’ episode 28 review: Lies and deception
The title above more or less says everything that you could possibly want to know about Friday night’s “special” episode of “Big Brother 18,” otherwise known as the Virtual Boy of “Big Brother” episodes. Nobody asked for it, it was a complete waste of time, but due to some clever promotion, going into it we had some false hope that it could be fun. Christmas is canceled; take the Virtual Boy back to the store.
This was a disaster. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t interesting, and other than a few minutes featuring Mr. PEC-Tacular (controversial opinion: We actually love him and wish he was a part of every season), borderline unwatchable. More than anything, the biggest problem with this episode is that it was horribly dishonest and give viewers a pretense that something remotely interesting and/or funny was going to happen.
1. Paulie was there for the party – This was filmed earlier this week. Why not just include a Diary Room session saying “earlier this week we had a party.” Complete revisionist history, and it’s utterly stupid given that it takes the entire live-feed audience for fools.
2. There were recap components when there didn’t need to be – You can argue that “special episode” could mean anything, but how about just giving us footage of people setting up strategy moving into the next Head of Household Competition? The showmance package was horrendous television, down to the cutesy laughter and watching Paulie treat Zakiyah horribly all over again. Who enjoyed this? Don’t producers realize that this is not “The Bachelor”? Hell, it’s not even “Coupled” and that show got canceled. This is a strategy game show WHERE YOU EVICT PEOPLE. No one runs off into the sunset together set to “Here Comes the Sun.”
We’re preconditioned to expect a recap episode near the end of the season. Not here. This felt like an easy way to punk some people into staying in on Friday night.
3. Ziggy Marley – Bob Marley is great. We’ve never heard a single Ziggy Marley song once in our life. If we wanted to listen to him, we’d go to iTunes or to YouTube. Nobody watches “Big Brother” for music. It would’ve been hilarious if Big Brother came over the air and told Ziggy to stop singing midway through. Isn’t that the rule?
4. Horribly manipulated Diary Room sessions – Whoever told Natalie to call the Ziggy concert a “dream come true” clearly had a full cooler’s worth of the fairly-alcoholic beer they were giving these people for the outdoor party. Meanwhile, having Nicole tell us she isn’t comfortable kissing on camera is completely nonsense given everything else she and Corey have done on the live feeds. Note to Nicole: People watch those. Weren’t you on season 16? Has Corey sucked you into a time vortex where season 16 didn’t happen?
5. James prank package – If it’s barely good enough for a YouTube highlight reel, it’s not good enough for the on-air show. Also, pranks are only funny when you don’t see them ONE TRILLION TIMES.
6. Only a few minutes of the actual HoH competition – Remember that competition that we didn’t get at the end of last night’s episode? Well, we barely got it here. It was an afterthought, and something that they really should have attached an alarm clock to for the sake of waking up who fell asleep during the first fifty minutes.
7. Oh, and Paulie actually won the dunk contest – Forgot to mention that at first in the midst of a rage-storm.
As viewers, we deserve better than one of Da’Vonne’s signature phrases (which we used for the title of this review). Feedsters deserve better than an episode that discounts their ability to remember facts. Even Jessie deserves better. Can’t we go stick him in a Pandora’s Box somewhere?
Honest admission: Were it took for the sake of writing this diatribe (and getting a few minutes of Pec-Tacular goodness, we probably would’ve stopped watching this episode about 20 minutes in. At this point, we’d come close to witnessing another Coup D’Jeff or a “Big Brother Canada 3” Have-Not Room twist over having to sit through this again.
Other things we’d prefer watching over this episode:
-Paul saying “your boy” for thirty minutes on a loop.
-Anything from “Big Brother 9.”
-Zingbot’s costume fitting.
-The rerun of “Shark Tank” that was airing against it.
-An actual shark tank at an aquarium.
Now, we gotta go get a drink. Or three. Grade: D- (we typically only give things an F if we come close to burning the TV halfway through).
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