Over the years, Big Brother has provided us with one of the most interesting, socially experimental, competitions in TV history. For some, the true beginning and end of the summer coincides with the annual season of this show. For reality TV fans, the blended margaritas won't taste right, the ocean's waves will be too rough, and the wind will be too strong to roll the top down, until a group of strangers make their nervous entry into the BB house. Within those months...even the slop tastes sweeter.
Thanks to on-demand streaming services, we can now get a taste of summer all year round, with every Season of Big Brother available to relive (or experience for the first time), no matter what the weather is like outside! So you don’t have to sift through the muck, this list has been compiled for you to easily choose which one is worth watching.
So…houseguests! Please gather in the living room! Here are the 7 best Seasons of Biiiiiiiiiig Brotherrrrr!
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Season 8
Nothing is more awkward than running into someone from your past, especially if the relationship didn’t end well. For sure, one of the most uncomfortable scenarios to experience. But for those watching on the outside…pure entertainment. Season 8 exposed us to a few of these moments, inserting three houseguests that each had someone from their past, with them in the cast. This included the trainwreck father-daughter pairing of Daniele and Dick Donato, which stood out more than the others. Out of contact for much of her life, Daniele and Dick were almost as much strangers to each other as the rest of the houseguests were. Their newfound relationship and common goal to win the game seemed to be the magical ingredients to help them find a happy ending at first, but that was before Dick turned evil. His tactic of using awkward intimidation towards other houseguests to propel him in the game, eventually included his estranged daughter. The Season wasn’t only filled with cringe moments, however. The show introduced a new part of the game called America’s Player, in which a contestant, Eric Stein, was forced to make game moves/pranks that were completely determined by viewers at home. These tasks resulted in some of the most hilarious and entertaining moments we’ve seen on Big Brother.
Season 2
After the inaugural Season, changes were made to certain rules in order to work out all the bugs that made Season 1 semi-boring. For example, believe it or not, the first go around had no jury votes (viewers at home chose the winner), or even the now coveted position of Head of Household. But in Season 2, the game truly turned to strategy when the show's strongest alliance formed between Dr. Will Kirby and Mike “Boogie” Malin. The pairing was so effective, that pretty much every two-person alliance has been, and will be, forever compared to that level of teamwork. Some may say that this was national TV‘s first ever example of a reality show “social game.” Despite never winning one Head of Household competition, Dr. Will proved that you can still go far in the game, as he was able to convince everyone that he deserved to be there in the finale.
Season 5
This Season featured a twist that had fans seeing double. Not only did we get to experience the first pair of competing siblings in the cast, but all of us at home were the only ones to know about it! That’s right, this twist had a pair of identical twins switching in and out of the game, without any other contestant realizing it. Not too much strategy came into play as a result of this game-curveball, but it was hilarious to see how each twin handled continuing conversations that they weren’t originally part of. In addition to the twin twist, Season 5 also gave us the first strategic “backdoor” vote; a strategy in which the two original nominated houseguests are not the actual intended targets for eviction. Changing the way future contestants handle their voting tactics, Season 5’s Jennifer “Nakomis” Dedmon and Marvin Latimer figured out a way to manipulate the winner of the Veto award in order to replace said winner with their actual target. Veto competitions were never the same after that.
Season 3
Speaking of the “Power of Veto,” Season 3 introduced us to that exact competition for the first time. From this point on, houseguests that were nominated had an opportunity to pull themselves off the chopping block. That brought the game to a whole new level as the contestants' fate for the week could now suddenly change on a dime. Surprisingly, out of all the future “Power of Veto” competitions played, this Season featured the most shocking result in the show's history. Here, contestant Marcellas Reynolds decided to hand over his power in order to save someone else rather than himself…ultimately leading to his game's demise.
A change with how the jury was handled after they were evicted from the house was also implemented in Season 3. In contrast to the previous first two Seasons, rather than going home and waiting for the Season to end (which led to final votes being influenced based on diary room confessionals that they were able to watch at home), they were now being sequestered until the show’s finale.
Season 7
With the summer of Season 7, we had a chance to experience the first ever Big Brother All Star cast. Top players from the previous six Seasons were thrown together to go at it again, including the now-famous pair of Dr. Will and Mike Boogie from Season 2. The best part of this go around was the fact that no one was new to the game. Every contestant experienced how to deal with certain strategies and social games the first time around, and now all of them were ready to show America how they'd grown as players. Of course, no one‘s plan was in line with anyone else’s, so fans were still blessed with plenty of drama and backstabbing moments. This was also the first Season where Big Brother decided to choose Power of Veto players at random, thus eliminating any kind of predictable strategy choices from the nominees/Head of Household.
Season 6
To many, this was the Season Big Brother truly hit its stride. Season 6 pretty much had everything a fan can hope for: clashing alliances, fierce competition, and a perfectly constructed twist that consisted of secret pairs playing together throughout the game. That’s right, each contestant had a secret pair in the house that no one else knew about. From exes to neighbors, each contestant had their own secret mini-alliance before the game even started. These pairings didn’t last very long once the secret was out, but it was sure fun to watch while it did. This summer also featured one of the first large alliance clashes in the show's history. A group that named themselves the Sovereign Six, collided with the Friendship alliance, which had viewers finding themselves deciding on which team they were rooting for.
Season 14
Looking to change things up (AKA expecting the unexpected), producers of Season 12 split the contestants into four teams. Each team was given their own coach, all who happened to be past All Star Big Brother contestants. Dan Gheesling, Janelle Pierzina, Mike "Boogie" Malin, and Britney Haynes, former players, were given the task to coach and guide the newbies, all while planning and scheming their own paths to victory. Highlighted by Dan’s ruthless and sometimes off putting gameplay, the coaches tried to blend the role of mentor along with manipulation to propel themselves as far as possible. Jury members, however, believed Dan took it too far and surely let him know it, as he faced off against fan favorite, Ian Terry. This Season also gave us one of the show's rare producer-evicted exits when Willie Hantz, brother of Survivor's Russell Hantz, was eliminated from the game for head-butting another house guest.