The Big Brother 18 Roadkill competition took place on Friday, leaving Live Feeds viewers in the dark for half the day yet again. While the Roadkill challenge was initially received somewhat better by viewers than the previous, almost universally hated Battle for the Block, it may end up being even more despised in the end — at least by Big Brother Live Feeds viewers.
The first problem with the Roadkill Competition so far is that at this point it hasn’t made much of a real difference in the game. While there was some possibility the challenge could have resulted in possible shakeups of the past couple of evictions, it actually seemed to have very little effect at all on anything.
The same people went home in the past two evictions, and probably will in the third eviction, that would have gone home anyway. Plus, the competition and its results don’t seem to have even influenced much else in the house either in regard to alliances, deals, or player gameplay. Some might argue that it has resulted in a few small strategy movies or deals, or maybe possibly had some tiny influence on who ended up the final target for the block — but I really just don’t feel that is so.
The second, bigger problem for Big Brother Live Feeds viewers is that it basically keeps us from watching a huge chunk of one of the most important strategy discussion days in the house. Fridays used to be one of the best and most favorite days to watch the Feeds. Right after the live eviction show, with a new Head of Household in charge, and eviction nominations in play — Fridays were usually golden Feeds watching time before.
Now, it’s mostly houseguests getting ready for the Roadkill, a very long time with Live Feeds on blackout, and then some post Roadkill chatter afterwards, usually quite boring — before the houseguests go off to bed. The day that used to be chock full very often with the best drama, strategy sessions, catfighting, and deal-making has now become pretty much a boring day of very little point watching the Feeds.
Which means that for Big Brother fans on Twitter, Fridays have now become one long tirade on the #BB18 & #BBLF hashtags with hate tweets from Live Feeds subscribers to CBS over the extremely long blackout times. There was no warning when signing up to subscribe to the CBS All Access Pass to watch the Feeds this year that viewers would be losing an additional half day or more to competition blackouts for season 18. No one signing up this season was expecting to have one of their favorite Feeds watching days totally gutted by this new competition and how CBS has handled it.
Which doesn’t even seem to make a lot of sense. The houseguests are competing in timed challenges one by one. Why on earth can’t the Live Feeds show what’s going on INSIDE the house with all the other houseguests while the ONE player is off competing in the backyard. I’m sure CBS has some very important reason why this is so, but it’s difficult to fathom what could be so vital to keep the Feeds off inside the house for so long and anger your subscribers over it to the point that some have threatened to unsubscribe because of it, or actually already have done so.
Maybe CBS makes all the houseguests wait outside in their Roadkill costumes while they wait for their turn and that’s why they won’t turn on the Live Feeds. Or perhaps they keep them separated because they don’t want them able to talk to each other about what the challenge is about and can’t trust the players not to flap their mouths to their allies about it to try to help them out. Although one would think they could establish harsh enough penalties to prevent that from happening.
Or it could be even that they don’t want the houseguests able to strategize with each other while one of them is trapped in the Roadkill RV and has no way to be involved. Even though I think that could actually be a total bonus in the game, not a detriment. How much fun to be able to strategize about someone behind their back when you KNOW there is no way they can interrupt you?
Regardless of why CBS Big Brother has decided to prevent Live Feeds viewers from tuning in to all the houseguests who are NOT competing in the Roadkill challenge, they have quickly managed to make this new competition even more hated than Battle of the Block for many of their subscribers. I know that I’m hoping to never see the Roadkill Competition return again myself, so that Fridays can go back to being the awesome Live Feeds days they used to be in the future.
And no, that doesn’t mean CBS should bring back Battle of the Block either. No matter how much CBS production seems to live under the fantasy that BotB was ever any kind of fan favorite challenge. Because that’s about the most ridiculous thing Big Brother has ever tried to promote in the show’s history.
