Big Brother 5 (a game show on CBS) is turning out to be quite fascinating. [livejournal.com profile] shannon_a's article about Big Brother 4 explains how the game's design has evolved, and what the implications of each rule change have been on the strategies that the players have come up with. This season, the rule change involved the "Golden Power Of Veto": instead of everyone in the house being able to compete for the Veto, the Head of Household and the two Eviction Nominees each get to pick one other player, and only those six players can compete for the Veto. The result was that the Eviction Nominees had a much greater chance of either winning the Veto or having an ally win the Veto, and in fact the Veto has been used much more often than it was used last year.

But then, one of the players (Nakomis, the token punk/goth chick) became Head of Household, and came up with a strategy to ensure that one particular player (Jase, the power player until recently) would be voted out: instead of nominating Jase for eviction, she nominated two other players in her alliance; then, she and those two picked three other players from the alliance, so that all six players in the Veto competition would have the common goal of using the Veto so that Nakomis could nominate Jase as the Veto replacement. The net effect was that Jase had no chance to win the Veto to save himself from eviction. She calls it the Six Finger Strategy, I guess because the six players competing for the Veto are all part of the same "hand". (But maybe she's also a Six Finger Satellite fan, who knows.)

This is a very clever strategy, and potentially breaks the game, since it makes the Veto competition practically pointless. It does have a major weakness, though, which is that it requires quite a large alliance: not only must there be six players who all agree to use the Veto, but there must be enough players in the alliance to actually vote out the targeted player (and two of the six won't be eligible to vote). Interestingly, one of her nominees (Marvin) was not in her alliance, but she did manage to convince him to play along; his only other option was to not use the Veto, though, which would have meant he'd still be up for eviction (against a member of the alliance). This is an extra subtlety of the strategy that made it a bit more robust.

The other interesting twist is that her other nominee (Diane) picked another player (Drew) who was also not in the alliance, and had actually been in an alliance with Jase. But apparently Drew wanted revenge against Jase for some bad blood about things that happened while they were allied, and so it was arranged for Drew to win the Veto so that he personally could be Jase's downfall. In fact once Jase figured out what was going on (and he didn't right away, because Nakomis fooled him into believing she didn't want him to get voted out), Drew had to lie to his face that he wouldn't use the Veto. I'm not really sure why they all didn't just explain to Jase what was going on, since there was nothing he could do to prevent it, but they were either being extra cautious (perhaps not wanting to fall into the "Before I kill you, Mr. Bond..." trap) or extra cruel. Perhaps Jase deserves it—he's been pretty cruel himself, and obnoxious, and borderline psychopathic. But for some reason he's still my favorite player, and it's a little sad to see him at the end of his rope in such an ugly way. Still, I'm impressed at Nakomis's strategic thinking.

By the way, check out House Calls, the Internet-only talk show about Big Brother; it's had a lot of discussion of various strategies, as well as behind-the-scenes gossip and interviews with evictees.

From: [identity profile] charkes.livejournal.com

OMG BIG BROTHER FAN!


5 or 10 minutes into tonight's episode, I wanted Jase to figure it out so I could relax. The secret, although funny, was really making me tense. I'm glad Jase eventually figured it out and acted on it.

During the veto ceremony, I do wish Nakomis would've said something like, "Adria, you're one of the strongest players in the game, you're extremely close to your sister, and we're used to having just one of you in the house. That's why I'm picking... Jase."

From: [identity profile] mshonle.livejournal.com


Well, they can edit these shows to make anyone look like a jerk or a nice guy. Any kind of hint of something can be grossly amplified.

That's partly why actors in films always try to be on the director's best side: Russell Crowe, 1 out of 3 times, could give the best performance anyone could do, but if those 2 out of 3 takes where he was "off" make it to the final cut, you're lead to believe he's a poor actor.

Either way, what you see of Jase is a subjective portrayal of him, not an objective one; so you may have plenty of good reasons to like him.

From: [identity profile] charkes.livejournal.com


I don't subscribe to the feeds but I do read the forums on http://www.jokersupdates.com/ and sometimes visit the IRC channel. Jase really is a jerk. The show actually edits out most of his jerkitude.

I don't recommend going to the JokersUpdates site any time but between Tuesday and Thursday's episodes. They do live updates of the HOH, nominations, and veto winner at the top of the forum page. It can be a spoiler.

The forum is the place to get interesting tidbits such as: Adria and Natalie use sign language to talk (and Big Brother told them to stop), Diane is trying to get it on with Drew but Michael keeps showing up, and Nakomis named the cameras.
shannon_a: (Default)

From: [personal profile] shannon_a


I was definitely impressed by that plan. A great example of how subtle rules changes can markedly change the gameplay.
.

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