Big Brother
Network: CBS
Lifespan: Summer 2000, 2001, 2002
Music: Mary Maxwell and John Thomas
Premise: A group of strangers enters a house taken from George Orwell's "1984", where everything they say or do is up for public scrutiny.
Summer 2000: Twelve people entered a house in Los Angeles, CA, for 100 days. Every week, three episodes aired. The players held competitions which were for small prizes or extra food. Every week, each person would put up two people for eviction. The two houseguests with the most votes were Nominated for Eviction. The people of America could then dial a premium phone line and vote to evict one of the two. The houseguest with more votes was then evicted. When three were left, America voted for who they wanted to win. The player who got the fewest votes won $50,000; second place $100,000, and the winner got $500,000. Those evicted were then subjected to the inane questioning of Julie Chen, held in front of a live studio audience.
Summer 2001: Noticing that the British format fell flat, and the populace vote could be fixed, Arnold Shapiro became producer, and the format became more "Survivor Lite". The twelve players were still in for three months, but the process was different.
Head of Household: This challenge occurred right after the eviction on Thursday night. The remaining houseguests (minus the outgoing Head of Household) would compete in contests, sometimes of knowledge of the other players, physical dexterity, or stamina for the final challenge. The winner got a private room with a locked door, a stocked mini-bar, and the responsibility of nominating two houseguests for eviction.
The Food Challenge: Each week, the houseguests would play a food challenge. Sometimes, they played as a team, where winning got a week's worth of food, otherwise the group ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the week. Other times, the houseguests were split into groups, where the winners got to eat real food, the others got sandwiches. One nifty challenge had the players catching tennis balls tossed over the walls, each one having different food items written on them.
Thursday night was Eviction Night on "Big Brother 2". The head of household and nominated guests were not eligible to vote, the remaining ones cast a vote to evict one of the nominees. If the vote was tied, then the head got to cast the deciding vote. Then the evicted houseguest was eliminated, and business carried on. At the end of the three months, two houseguests were left. The nine eliminated houseguests (one was expelled for breaking the rules, and did not participate in the vote) then cast a vote for who should win the $500,000. The runner-up got $50,000. Each of the finalists got one chance to toss out a vote from one of the Losers, without knowing which way he or she voted.
Big Brother 3 added a few new wrinkles to the game.
The Power of Veto: After the nominations on Saturday, Tuesday night had a Power of Veto contest. Everyone but the Head of Household competed for the right to hold the power. In essence, using it revoked one nomination of the Head of Household, who would then have to pick someone else. The Veto could not be used to revoke the nomination if the winner was up for eviction until the second-to-last week.
After week four, the four eliminated contestants were given the chance to come back into the game. Firstly, each Evictee declared how much of the grand prize he or she would give up to return. The low bidder was then eliminated. After that, the remaining Evictees bid on how many days they would eat peanut butter/jelly sandwiches in return for playing again (it turned out that the bids were not binding after all). Then, the Houseguests voted on the last two Evictees, and most votes won.
For the $500,000 Final, there was no cancelling of votes.
Season Four added a this year was the year of the X-Factor. Five people from an original group of eight would be joined by their exes from a past relationship, making thirteen in the house.
Season Five was dubbed "Project DNA: Do Not Assume." Two of the contestants were related (half-brother and sister) and one of the contestatns was actually a pair of twins competing as one person. If they managed to make it through eight weeks without being found out (they had to switch several times a week) the two twins would get to play the game individually. One tweak allowed for only six contestants to play in the Power of Veto contest, which allowed a coalition of houseguests to evict one unsuspecting player without him realizing it. The seven most recent evictees formed a jury to determine who would win.
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