Big Brother Canada 8 is aiming to be its most super-sized season yet! The is the year of comic book heroes and villains emerging from across Canada to leave their mark in the Big Brother house. The house is designed to match the theme and different levels of fandom from superfan to newbie have been chosen to compete. Based on the premiere week, some houseguests haven’t learned from the mistakes of the past, and one squandered their opportunity that many others dreamed to have.
Firstly, let’s talk about the house design. The Big Brother Canada 8 house is outfitted with artwork that feels like it was pulled from the pages of a comic book/manga/graphic novel. Each houseguest is designed as a superhero cartoon; a hint of their artwork is included in the large comic book door that opens up to the front of the building. Many rooms are designed as nods superhero characters: the Head of Household room to mimic Superman’s fortress of solitude, the Have-Not room swamp for Swamp Thing’s home, and the bedrooms as the comic books themselves. The design is a fun treat for geeky fans who love the superhero touch – this is the most visually-designed house yet. Big Brother Canada continues to exceed expectations every year!
The selected cast this year includes a wide range of houseguests across jobs, locations in Canada, ethnicities, and also personality. The one area it is lacking, however, is age difference. There are still too many young houseguests and not many over the age of 35. The average age is higher than most seasons, especially compared to the U.S. series of Big Brother, but it could be improved even further. From the cast, we have a hypnotist (Chris), a former AAA college athlete (Maddy), a wrestler (Sheldon), and a fisherman (Vanessa). Overall, it’s a good bunch that has a lot of potential to be gameplayers.
Big Brother Canada 8’s first twist is an oldie but a goodie. Since the houseguests move in a week prior to the airing of the season premiere, they essentially spend a week of gaming inside the Big Brother house. The twist had Canada voting for their favorite houseguests, and those with the least number of votes would have to compete/avoid an eviction vote to stay in the game. I like this version of the Week 1 eviction because it gives the houseguests an equal amount of time to save themselves, build relationships, and earn their place in the game.
The U.S. version has done a variant of this in the past where the houseguest gets evicted on Day #1 (or the next day). That twist should never happen because it’s unfair after all the time a person spends to get into the game, and someone’s chances can be ruined by bad luck. A good example of this is what happened to David on Big Brother 21. Big Brother Canada is doing the right approach by utilizing the time they do have to give the players a fair shot.
Two major alliances emerged during their eviction planning: the Evictors and the 6-way alliance (no official name yet). From the two, the Evictors seem to be on more solid ground since it’s a tighter group, smaller numbers, and they were formed based on common friendships. The larger alliance is more of a voting bloc or trust cluster; smaller parts of it are the true alliances, but they’re working together to have safety and help each other. I won’t put much stock into them yet until the second week as first week alliances tend to break apart quickly once the houseguests get to know each other and make their real friendships.
Minh-Ly needs to do a lot of damage control heading into the next round. She’s volatile, unpredictable, talks before she thinks, and loves to showcase her ego. It’s still too early in the season to start clashing with any of the houseguests, so her starting an argument with Kyle and Angie was not the right thing to do. Her continued animosity with Jamar could go wrong if he takes something she says the wrong way. And, her campaigning to save Nico when it became obvious that Susanne had the votes to stay only hurt her in the end since it made her seem shady to the opposition forming in the house. Minh-Ly seems like she’ll be a pre-jury boot at this point.
Susanne did everything she needed to do to save herself. Big Brother Canada 8 has barely started, so making connections and showing everyone why she’s more fun to keep around has more weight to it than the competition value that could be provided later on. Susanne easily flexed her social game and outmaneuvered Nico at every turn. By the time he actually tried to stay, she had already formed her friendships and had the house working for her. If she can keep her cool together, she has the potential to go far.
Advertisement
Nico deciding to self-evict is a sad decision for any player. The odds of getting on Big Brother Canada are slim and to go through the entire casting process took the opportunity away from someone else who really wanted it. Host Arisa Cox stated that the decision was right for him, so we do need to honor that choice. Based on the footage, he seemed pretty down on himself and resigned himself to losing before even considering trying; Nico most likely needed to feel like a winner, and since Canada placed him in the bottom, that probably hurt him even more.
The premiere week of Big Brother Canada 8 started with a bang before delivering a shocking conclusion. Nico walking out the door meant that no eviction needed to talk place, so the real first vote will happen during round 2. Now that he’s gone, the houseguests who want to play the game can start making the moves to change the game. The season is only going to kick off from here.
Advertisement