Big Brother Needs Fresh Faces, Not More Reality Recycling

Reality TV has a recycling problem.

More and more, familiar players are returning for multiple seasons or crossing over into other competition shows.

Big Brother 28 is the latest example, and this one is already working my nerves.

Unfortunately, Angela Murray is returning to the Big Brother house after competing in Season 26. I think it’s a horrible decision.

She was memorable, but memorable is not always enjoyable. Sometimes memorable means messy and exhausting.

For me, Angela was exhausting. I found her behavior on Big Brother 26 hard to watch.

She could dish it out, but when that same energy came back her way, she often played the victim.

That is one of my least favorite reality TV patterns.

You can’t light the match, fan the flames, and then act shocked when the room gets hot.

Angela’s blowups may have made for viral moments, but they also crossed a line for me.

At her worst, she came across as bullying, unhinged, and so wrapped up in her own version of events that nobody else’s experience seemed to matter.

That is not entertaining; it’s draining.

Big Brother may be bringing her back because it is good TV, but I consider it a reward for bad behavior.

That is where I have a problem.

Reality TV keeps acting like the most chaotic person in the room automatically deserves another platform.

Meanwhile, plenty of people have applied and auditioned for years and never get one chance to play.

Big Brother does not need more reality recycling. It needs fresh faces.

Give someone else a chance to play!

The game works best when fresh players walk into that house and have to figure it out for themselves. That is part of the fun.

We get to meet them, judge them, change our minds, root for them, side-eye them, and watch them either rise to the occasion or lose the plot by Week 2.

That is Big Brother at its best.

Returning players don’t walk into the house on equal footing with first-time houseguests. They already know the game from the inside.

They know the pressure and the paranoia. That’s an automatic advantage.

And if returning players enter with an automatic advantage, the newbies automatically enter with a disadvantage.

I don’t care how many seasons a new player has watched. Watching Big Brother from the couch is not the same as playing Big Brother inside the house.

You can study every season, listen to every podcast, follow every live feed update, and swear you know exactly what you would do.

Then you get in that house, lose access to the outside world, start second-guessing every conversation, and realize this game is not as easy as it looks from home.

Returning players already know that feeling. Newbies don’t.

Even when returning players don’t win, they often know enough to go far.

They know how to lower their threat level and when to stay quiet.

They know how to smile in somebody’s face while quietly working against them.

That kind of experience is powerful in a game built on pressure, timing, lies, and perception.

Then there is the starstruck problem. New houseguests can get so excited about playing with a familiar Big Brother name that they forget they are not there to admire anyone’s game.

They are there to win.

When newbies start treating returning players like legends instead of competitors, the game gets lopsided fast.

They protect people they should be watching and trust people because they liked them on television.

In the meantime, they end up voting out potential allies while keeping dangerous players in the house.

And that’s how they shoot themselves in the foot, by sending home people who could’ve helped them.

By the time the newbies figure it out, Julie Chen Moonves is telling them to gather “his or her belongings” and get out.

That’s what reality recycling does to the game. It creates an uneven playing field.

This season, the recycling is not just coming from Big Brother’s own backyard either.

Former Survivor contestant Rick Devens is also joining the Big Brother 28 cast, and another unknown Survivor alum is set to enter the house as well.

And this isn’t the first time a Survivor player has become a houseguest.

When Cirie Fields moved into the Big Brother 25 house, she was a Survivor legend and fan favorite, having played the game five times at that point.

That is a lot of social strategy experience.

For the record, I actually like Rick Devens, but that still doesn’t erase the bigger issue. He already knows what it feels like to play a televised social strategy game under pressure.

No, Survivor and Big Brother are not the same game.

One has tribes, idols, beaches, and rice drama, while the other has nominations, live feeds, Have Nots, and people whispering in storage rooms like they are defusing bombs.

Still, both games require social strategy, deception, timing, adaptability, and the ability to survive people judging your every move.

That gives Survivor alumni a different kind of advantage.

They may not know the Big Brother house, but they know competition reality TV.

Big Brother is not the only show guilty of this. Survivor has done it. The Amazing Race has done it, too.

CBS reality shows love passing familiar faces around like food at a family reunion.

Maybe Angela will surprise me. It’s possible that she will play a calmer, more self-aware game.

I am not betting my snack money on it, though… and I love snacks!

Returning players create buzz, and that is exactly why shows keep bringing them back. But a returning player twist should feel special.

It should not feel like the show is rewarding the loudest, messiest, most controversial person in the room because they generated headlines last time.

There is a difference between drama and dysfunction.

Big Brother loves to blur those lines, and viewers are allowed to push back when the show crosses them.

So yes, I will be watching Big Brother 28. Let’s not act like I’m above the mess.

I will be seated, judging, and yelling at the screen all season!

Big Brother 28 premieres tonight, July 9, at 8 pm ET/PT on CBS.