Shocker? Elissa's MVP Twist

So this week's MVP nominee was just revealed to the houseguests on the live feeds, and it's:

MVP!

So now America is all:

Could you repeat those instructions?

Congrats, Topaz - it's not just you anymore!

...Just kidding. The internet is starting to speculate that fans mistakenly voted their favorite for MVP, but I don't think that's the case at all (despite an earnest effort from some fans to ensure that it happened - *cough*, BBGossip, *cough*). On further reflection, I don't think it's a surprise that Elissa scored this week's MVP nomination from America, and I don't think America Topazed us, either. 

Think about it for a second. Elissa, to borrow a phrase from BBUK, is the Marmite houseguest. She's loved by a passionate brigade of Rachel fans, marching alongside people who flocked to her due to her early victimization in the house, but she's similarly loathed by Rachel haters and those who feel she's taking away from the show and the game by being a waste of space.

Did Elissa come in first in nomination voting? Of course she did not. Aaryn is the season's villain, heck, she's probably one of the most hated villains ever on the show, and the Elissa fans and others no doubt teamed up to vote their keyboards off for her. (I may have thrown a few votes her way myself, hoping for a Nerd Herd-style meltdown from Aaryn.) Kaitlin may have beaten Elissa, too - we'll never know, since Judd nominated the both of them, eliminating them from eligibility for America's vote. 

About that.

But not everyone voted for Kaitlin or Aaryn. It's quite possible that Elissa is the second or third most hated houseguest, in addition to being the most popular. BBUK fans have been dealing with this dynamic for years, with the constant tug-of-war between Vote-to-Save and Vote-to-Evict. A traditional BBUK Vote-to-Evict eliminates the controversial Marmite houseguests from contention, while the newer Channel 5 Vote-to-Save propels great characters to the end, like the Shannon twins, Spencer and Heidi, or Aaron. (They're back to a Vote-to-Evict this year, if you're counting.) 

What we're looking at here is a mid-game switcheroo, from a "Vote To Save" to a "Vote to Evict". It's very possible that Elissa scores highly in both without any fan interference. 

Her brother-in-law Brendon certainly did in season 13, where despite being widely despised by the audience, he still managed to win a vote to return to the house, when a dominant Dom-and-Cassi-loving voting audience split the vote and Brendon crept in from behind with the half-hearted support of Jeff/Jordan fans:

Brendon-39.5%

Dom-31%

Cassi-28.5%

Keith-1%

Marmite, folks. There's no production interference here, there's no manipulation, it's pure and simple voting theory. 

Elissa is loved and Elissa is hated, and with Aaryn and Kaitlin out of contention, the Elissa nomination makes perfect sense. 

So voting aside, the paranoia is already running amok in the house, and the game's about to get fun. The houseguests are scattering like mice (hamsters?) and whispering wildly about who could be the new MVP, and who to save, and how to strategize the veto competition.

I have to tip my hat to Production on this one, it's already far more fun than a fourth dreary week of Elissa as MVP. 

Around the Web: #BBCan Fallout Matchmaker Edition

Now that the Big Brother Canada houseguests have returned to the outside world, most of them are on Twitter, with the notable exceptions of Topaz, Emmett, and Jillian.

OTP

As I had hoped, The Shield The Sheyld have been particularly responsive so far, with both fans and with haters, though Peter seems more comfortable on Twitter than Alec.

Vs.

Needless to say, the pair aren't getting a uniformly cheery reaction on Twitter, but they're able to find the positive:

In other news, the Alec/Topaz "thing" continues its weirdness, unabated:

Ohhhh, she probably did. 

In other Big Brother news, there's a new development in the Big Brother US winner's circle, with BB4 winner Jun Song starting a dating service focused exclusively on finding love for BB14 winner Ian Terry after a particularly self-deprecating tweet from the founder of the Quack Pack.

Wonder if she'd expand the circle outside of Big Brother winners to include Big Brother losers? Since it sounds like Alec might be back to the drawing board in that department.

And speaking of Big Brother winners and love, someone in the UK has had a little time on their hands:

Indeed.

I wonder if Jay and Louise's rumored breakup had anything to do with Aaron's Big Brother marathon - I can't shake the feeling that he and Faye are privately giddy about outlasting JayLou to be the longest-lasting showmance of BBUK Season 12. I imagine their reaction looking something like this:

Maybe Jay can get a leg up now from JunMatches.com too, if she expands the circle to include Big Brother losers. (Warning: link is to Jay's very unflattering leg tattoo of Louise, don't click while eating.)

I guess all that's left to say on that can be summed up by the Bit on the Side caption team:

BBUK: Jamie and Alice Won't Be Back

Talk about burying the lead!

Today, The Sun has an article about upcoming changes on BBUK's "Bit on the Side", headlined "Emma Willis lands role on Big Brother's Bit On the Side."

Classically uncomfortable moments with BOTS

The real story, though?

“Sadly, Jamie and Alice won’t be back.”

Say that again?

“Sadly, Jamie and Alice won’t be back.”

Apparently, the show is "trying to go more upmarket". That shouldn't be too hard, they've really got nowhere to go but up. 

Jamie East had gotten tiresome to the point that I gave up on the spin-off show in the last couple of seasons. His trolling-the-fans shtick was kind of funny at first, especially when fans took the bait, but at a certain point, and a pretty quick one at that, it just got old. Jamie could have been funny as a subversive outsider, but as a content producer for the show, it became uncomfortable to see him deliberately stirring the fans' anger, over and over. Probably his best BBUK moment wasn't funny because of him, but because of his interview subject, and that one didn't end especially well. 

If you want to generate interest in Big Brother, wouldn't it be easier to restore the live feeds than to produce an entire hour of Bit on the Side every day? Don't answer that. No one from the Big Brother team will. 

So the only question left: Is Rylan Clark considered "upmarket"? Normally I'd say no, but again, this is BOTS. There's really nowhere to go but up. 

Big Brother Around the Web: Dysfunction Junction

"I know how I feel about you, and it took me too long to realize that. And that sucks." 

-Alec to Topaz, on why he doesn't want to campaign against her.

Well. So, that's where he seems to be.

On that note, I've got another classic from the Survivor Sucks thread this afternoon, from ohboy:

"i never imagined a bb relationship could be more dysfunctional than bbuk's aaron and faye, but alec and topaz have done it."

Yes! - Dysfunctional Aaron and Faye

It's so true. Welcome to the Dysfunction Junction club, Alec and Topaz. 

I doubt they'll still be living together a year and a half later like Aaron and Faye, but it is starting to look like Alec and Topaz may have something that continues at least into the Jury House, which is more than I would have expected from them a week ago. 

We'll just ignore for the moment the irony that all of this comes from Topaz finally realizing that she had to play the crap out of Alec in order to get him to admit his real feelings. 

Or, maybe that just means that they're cut out for each other after all. 

Diary Room Pile-Up

When I heard all the houseguests were called to the Diary Room to answer fan questions this afternoon, I had a momentary flashback to this great moment from Channel 5's first Big Brother UK season:


That will never get old. (Especially that innocently subversive moment where Aaron delivers the first official acknowledgment of the Freezergate controversy from inside the house. Classic.)

The Sixteenth Houseguest

"The sixteenth houseguest? Production." -Alec, 3/31/13.

The sixteenth houseguest at work

As Big Brother superfans, Alec and Peter understood this concept from day one. In the game of Big Brother, theoretically you're playing against the fifteen people cast to battle head to head in the game of Big Brother, but in reality, you're also competing for the heart of the unseen gods controlling the game. Ask Jessie Godderz in Big Brother US Season 11 about that, or Shelly Moore on Big Brother US Season 13, or Aaron Allard-Morgan from Big Brother UK Season 12. (Okay, Aaron won his series, but more in spite of Production than because of them.) 

Topaz, while topping out the fan favorite rankings at Jokers' Updates, has never been a favorite of Production. Her continued insistence on napping against their direct orders, her ignoring of alarms, her open mouthing off against their interference - all of it served to draw the battle lines, and Production struck this week in the worst way possible.

Poster Doctor Skeuss at Survivor Sucks was at last Thursday's taping and noted an extended production conference before Topaz's eventual victory in the contest. Moments later, as we know, Topaz skated to victory to cheers from her fans, only to have her game destroyed once the feeds went down.

Jokers Reacts

Production enjoyed the chaos of it all, with producer and Marsha the Moose voice Trevor Boris gleefully tweeting as the episode aired, "im guessing a lot of you have never seen a Big Brother from any of the other 46 countries except the US".

And yes, as Peter noted, Topaz didn't have to talk out loud. Or did she?

Topaz isn't a particularly vocal strategist, we saw Arisa encouraging her to talk out loud, and we don't know what else was said. I will be very interested to hear after the show if Topaz claims she was encouraged to openly voice her strategy for the fans. Certainly she had no reason to expect that this Big Brother US-style game would suddenly become a Big Brother UK-style one, and why would she?

It's one thing when BBUK messes with the houseguests by revealing secrets, because ultimately, the power rests in the hands of the audience. On this show, however, there's no way that exposing a player like that won't wreck their game, and Production certainly had to know that going in.

Would they have done the same to Peter if, god forbid, he'd managed to win an actual competition? I can't help but feel like they wouldn't. (Trevor's Marsha the Moose alter ego is a noted Peter fan, of course.) We'll never know, but after years of watching Big Brother in multiple countries, I've just come to expect that Production is manipulating the story they want to tell.

That said, the Chevrolet "Powershift" twists have been uniformly horrible so far in terms of moving the story: Sending Aneal home over the gameless Suzette was a travesty, and this twist has managed to sink the games of lead characters like Gary, Topaz, Alec and Peter, while bolstering bores like Andrew and Jillian.

At this point, I chalk it up to the fact that the Sixteenth Houseguest is a newbie, and still figuring out how to wield the monster that is Big Brother. Given the fact that the ratings aren't going anywhere, they'll have plenty of time to figure out how to manipulate in the future, but for now, we have to wait and see if they can manage to salvage the game and propel the interesting characters and gamers into the finals or not.

Alec and Topaz: Who Plays the Players?

Overnight at Jokers Updates, posters were speculating about Alec's BBUK fandom and a report that he called Big Brother UK Season 12 one of his favorites. (I didn't hear that, but did catch him discussing Faye's secret task last week.) The reason why this is significant is that BBUK 12 winner Aaron was notorious for playing a blistering mindfuck of a game, confounding production and viewers alike for weeks*.

*For the record, in the end, Aaron was not playing the girl, he and Faye are still together a year and a half later, thank you very much.

Alec seems to be heading down that road to an extent, confusing viewers about his intentions, especially with Topaz.

His physical attraction to her seems legit - I've heard him cite BBUK's Noirin as being one of his Big Brother crushes, so it's not surprising that he cuddled up to Topaz on the first night. But what about after that? You can't exactly break up with your showmance in the Big Brother house - even if you want to.

Then there was Showergate, an incident that I thought was rather Aaron-like back when it happened. I still do think that Alec's overreaction was genuine (as were most of Aaron's), especially after hearing Aneal and Kat discussing it on a recent podcast. Aneal pointed out, and Kat agreed, that the corner where Alec went to "hide" during his Diary Room session is the natural place in that room to go to avoid the camera. The breakdown was probably legitimate.

But many skeptical viewers have pointed to Alec's own master's thesis, defended just last year. In the thesis, Alec explores the sexual attractiveness of a variety of emotions, most notably shame, and finds that with certain situations, male displays of shame can be sexually appealing.  That finding is not consistent, though - and Alec's hyper-awareness of the physical presentation of shame could have actually been what caused him to overreact and lose his cool in the situation. (That, and the slop.)

Hot or not? Alec's actual research

Alec has admitted that his social psychology scholarship was inspired by Dr. Will Kirby and his love of Big Brother. So, it opens up the question - just how far will Alec go to manipulate in the Big Brother game? 

We know he's playing Topaz, but Topaz suspects it, too. She's called him out for withholding personal information and doubted him in her private conversations with Gary. She knows she goes farther with Alec than without, so at this point, she's putting up with him as much as he's putting up with her. She seems casually attracted to him, but also annoyed by his cautious personality and reluctance to consult her on game decisions.

There's one big difference between how Alec privately discusses Topaz and how Topaz privately discusses Alec, however.

Topaz at least sees the value in keeping Alec in the game as long as possible, and is looking out for his interests. When he won Head of Household, she cautioned him to use his power to make deals with people rather than automatically guaranteeing them safety, but he brushed her off and privately told Peter that she was getting too big for her britches.

Alec openly has no qualms about cutting Topaz, even next week if it comes down to it. This wouldn't be a bad strategy if he wanted to throw suspicion away from their showmance, but he seems quite serious about it. He's much more open in his game talk with Peter and even with Andrew and Emmett at times than he is with Topaz.

The fact that Topaz is becoming a fan favorite in her own right is also hurting Alec's public popularity right now - he's plummeting in the Joker's ratings poll, and could be in danger if there's a fan vote that puts him at risk.

As a viewer, I find the Alec-Topaz dynamic fascinating. Showmances that lack tension are boring, and players that jump in the sack right away and refuse to come out until their eviction tend to clog up the feeds. Showmances are entertaining when there's tension, though. Usually that means some kind of sexual tension, as relationships build over time. Alec and Topaz are something different, something we haven't seen before.

This isn't the first strategic showmance - that prize goes to Chilltown, who invented the strategy (and claim they invented the word 'showmance'). What Alec is doing is also not at the level of a Mike Boogie/Erika game, to his credit. Topaz is sharper than the average showmance, and Alec hasn't exactly been subtle about the fact that she's not his number one. She's appropriately suspicious of his intentions, and Alec is at least respectful of her.

They just don't seem like a compatible couple outside of the game, and both seem to be consciously aware of that. So, what do you do?

The unfortunate part of all of this is that both Topaz and Alec are astute gamers, whose skills complement each other's deficits. Alec has the cool head that Topaz lacks, Topaz has the heightened perception that Alec lacks, and the two of them could really control the entire house... if they tried.

The only way that can happen now is if Peter and Gary leave before Alec and Topaz and force them to work together. It's not out of the question, but it's looking less and less likely every day.