Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
When CBS announced that Big Brother was going to do a new season in the fall that would air entirely on its streaming platform CBS All Access, I was initially dubious, because I hate and fear change. But I quickly became intrigued; even hopeful. The broadcast version of Big Brother is addictive in its way, but one of the main annoyances I have had with Big Brother is that by the time we get around to a TV episode, we are already days past those events, and I’ve long been spoiled by social media. With Over the Top, the show would be free to cover the events in the house nightly if they wanted to! Problems solved!
Well, a problem solved.
Well, make that no problems solved.
When Decider’s Scott Porch talked to Big Brother: Over the Top executive Marc DeBevoise, he laid out what seemed like a decently digestible schedule of recap shows, competitions, and a live elimination. In practice, however, attempting to follow along with Big Brother: Over the Top has become a Kafka-esque exercise, lost in the cavernous spaces of CBS All Access, attempting to make sense (and a narrative) out of dozens of short-form videos.
Here’s the deal: Big Brother: Over the Top is happening live, as you read this, and if you head on over to CBS All-Access, you can click on the Live Feeds link and watch every real-time action. But if you want to consume Big Brother with any kind of sense of narrative, without camping out in front of the live feeds all day, that’s where the show needs to step in and, you know, be a show. According to the site, there will be one proper episode that airs weekly, Wednesdays at 10PM ET, which will lead up to a live eviction. Other than that, though, Over the Top exists as a series of short-form videos, living on the “Videos” tab of the Big Brother site. The clips are presented on different playlists, without any kind of direction as to the order in which we should watch. “Weekday replay” clips are 8-12 minute summaries of the days events, but they don’t include competitions or nomination ceremonies. Those videos are … elsewhere? Or not. It seems that you have to know when the various competitions and ceremonies will be taking place and tune into the live feed then. Without video of those, the daily recaps seem to lurch past major developments and leave it to us to retroactively fill in the blanks. Hey, I’m find using my brain to engage with the art that I consume. This isn’t art. This is Big Brother. I shouldn’t have to read between the lines.
It is a maddening viewing experience, and it actually manages to take the Big Brother format and make it even more of a tape-delayed experience than the broadcast version, because now there is only one episode a week if you want to see the events from the house in any way that makes narrative sense.
This isn’t even getting into this year’s contestants, who seem like … well, like any other group of Big Brother contestants, except that they’re taking 3 months off in the fall, which means not only are they not gainfully employed, but they’re not even students. There’s a pair of sisters ridiculously trying to pass as unrelated. There are a couple of guys whose entire personalities seem to be “I have lots of hair.” The show seems to be mocking the contestants more openly than they used to. The (convoluted) opening gambit to decide a Head of Household involved the guests passing on an “infection,” one to another, until one houseguest was left standing, and thus the HoH. Said “infection” was really a medallion with a giant red crab on it. So, yes, the Big Brother houseguests spent the better part of a day passing a crabs infection to one another. This all sounds like a promising, silly, irreverent season of Big Brother. If only it weren’t such a pain in the ass to watch it.
