Big Brother 9 - An Introduction

2008 was the year of the TV Writers Strike, a bad year for TV fans.  The Writers Guild of America, East went on strike due to the writers being paid less.  And with good reason, most TV shows sucked.  I didn't want to give them a cent for turning out a shitty product.  None the less, the WGAE went on strike, and most network show's were left without scripts to film and episodes to air.

The network execs were in trouble, no shitty TV meant that viewers might look elsewhere for entertainment.  Maybe even (gasp) looking for entertainment outside of TV, meaning the execs might loose money!  Quick, what can you air that requires no writers?  Reality TV!

CBS has three well known reality shows.  Survivor, the greatest reality show of all time, which airs a season in fall-winter, and a season in winter-spring.  The Amazing Race, an over rated show, which airs the same times as Survivor.  Finally they had Big Brother, a summer reality show that takes three months to air.  As it's longer then the other two, Big Brother seasons usually last over 70 days, and the show tends to air three times a week.  Well, with no scripts written and no written shows to air, CBS needed a show to fill the void.  The solution?  The first winter season of Big Brother.

And the last.  The season, Big Brother 9, was a disaster in every way.  To this day it's considered the worst of all seasons, as it should be.  I'll explain why, but first (laughs) a little back story.

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The previous season of Big Brother, BB8 had just finished airing on September 13th 2007.  The season was...bad, usually ranked among the worst of the show.  The reasons were simple, but numerous.

The first reason was the cast.  The cast was a group of people, almost all of whom were under the age of 30.  The two exceptions were Kail and Dick, and if either one of those two acted like an adult I'll eat my shoes.  The entire group of house guests were vapid non-entities, they never said anything interesting and none of them had any life experience, and few had personalities.  They were nasty to each other, constantly getting into screaming matches, and you got the feeling that these people really hated each other.  Since the cast was almost entirely made of morons, few of them had any strategic thoughts.  In fact, only four house guests ever seemed to use strategy, and one of them wasn't playing for himself.

That leads me into the second problem, stupid twists.  Season Eight had two major twists, both stupid.  The first was the enemies twist, where three house guests were informed enemies from their past would be staying with them.  One pair was a girl named Jessica and a girl named Carol, former high school BFF's who didn't fight and didn't dislike each other.  The second pair were ex-boyfriends Dustin and Joe, Joe being a whiny gay stereo-type and Dustin being someone with class.  Finally the most famous pair were estranged father and daughter Dick and Daniel Donato.  Dick was a loud mouthed arrogant, insulting, obnoxious, hateful, violent, piece of shit, but he was up forward about all of those things, and he did love his daught.  Daniel was a spoiled, whiny, angry, petulant little dumb ass who was all of the things her father was.  The difference was while Dick was openly an ass, Daniel would in public talk about how she wasn't like her father, and in private insulted people and did the same things her dad did.  Classy.

The second twist was America's Player.  America's Player was one player who was working for the audience, in this case a man named Eric Stein.  Eric was easily the most strategic player in the house, and it did not matter one iota because he had to do what the audience said.  People have since bitched that he should have ignored America, but the thing is, he was contractually obligated.  Eric had no choice, he had to do what America said.  America said it liked Dick, so Eric had to do what Dick said.  This twist was a nightmare as it's what allowed Dick to make it to the end and win so easily, while forcing a good player to sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs.

The final problem of the season was the focus on drama.  In a good season, Big Brother is an emotional roller-coaster filled with people you like, with each episode spending some time showing you a different side to each house guest, showing them to be real people.  Season 8 didn't have that.  The cast was shallow, and the show was edited shallow.  It was all about drama, as many fights as you could cram in, in 45 minutes.  We rarely saw a likable side to Dick or Kail .  We never saw a side of Nick or Amber that wasn't boring. We never saw a side of Daniel or Jen that wasn't obnoxious.  Hell, we barely saw Mike and Zach.  Eric and Jessica were the only two players who came across as actual human beings, and when both of them left the show, I did too.  I was just sick to death of watching bitter people being nasty.

So, with all these problems, some people would assume that CBS would make sure to avoid them with Season 9.  These people would be morons.

Season 8 only had two people over the age of 30.  Season 9 had one.
Season 8 had a couple of stupid twists.  Season 9 was bombarded by stupid twists.
Season 8 only had drama.  Season 9 had small bits of drama sandwiched between long stretches of boredom.

Season 9 was thrown together quickly just so CBS would have something to fill the airwaves, and man does it show.  This season is dull, annoying, and makes you hate everyone.  It insulted the viewers and nearly destroyed one of the greatest reality shows of all time.  The show was announced on December 3rd 2007, less then three months from the end of Season 8, and premiered on February 12th 2008, less then six months after the end of Season 8.  You knew this season would be bad from how fast it was rushed.  You didn't think it would be this bad.

The only positive thing I can say about Season 9 was that CBS finally listened to the viewers when 9 went off the air.  The next season, which aired later that year, was Big Brother 10, one of the best seasons of the show and my personal favorite.  It had a great cast of intelligent, diverse players.  It had a focus on the cast and not just fights.  It had my all-time favorite player, and one of the best players of all-time, Dan.  So oddly, if it weren't for the terror of 9, then the awesome of 10 would not exist.

I'll begin talking about the premier later this week, and I will try to update this blog once a week.  Still, it won't be easy watching Season 9 again, but making fun of these morons will be sweet.  With that out of the way, let's get started.