Big Brother 23: Producers tease new game-changing team twist

We’re less than two weeks away from the premiere of Big Brother 23, and at long last, details are finally rolling in about the highly-anticipated new installment of CBS’ long-running reality competition series. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, executive producers Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan discussed a number of new details about the upcoming season – including the casting process, house theme, and a game-changing new twist that will see the houseguests enter the house and play the first few weeks in teams.

Big Brother has faced significant criticism in past seasons for a number of issues – mainly the show’s lack of diversity and poor treatment of minority houseguests, as well as the more recent repetitive gameplay tendencies that see the houseguests fall in line with a majority alliance that runs the house all season. After the exit of casting director Robyn Kass prior to the pre-production of Big Brother 23, fans were hopeful that the show would move in a new, more exciting direction, and if Grodner and Meehan’s recent interview is anything to go by, this season promises a new beginning for the beloved but flawed series.

The first and most significant piece of news in the interview surrounds the introduction of a new twist that will kick off the season: The houseguests will be playing in teams. According to Meehan, the twist will kick in on night one, and was implemented to steer the show away from the herd, ‘vote with the house’ mentality that’s plagued previous seasons.

"“Opening night… the houseguests learn they’re going to be playing in a team dynamic. There will be a twist that forces them to play in teams. They’re going to be vying to be team captains as well as Head of Household. We think that fun team dynamic will be interesting to watch. There will be the risk-work-versus-reward element — again, this idea that you’re going to have to make decisions you’ve never had to make before. And they could be very risky decisions that could put you [on] good [terms] with people, or maybe not.”"

This new twist, which heavily emphasizes the risk-vs-reward element of gameplay, also ties into the newly announced house theme, which is described as “beach club meets Vegas meets Monte Carlo.” The theme will hopefully further encourage houseguests away from the groupthink mentality, and make for entertaining TV – it’s likely that the new Vegas-style gambling twist elements could be this season’s version of similar twists like Big Brother 19‘s Den of Temptation, or Big Brother 20‘s App Store. The concept of playing for power and alienating oneself in the process also feels similar to Big Brother 22‘s Safety Suite twist, which saw houseguests given a chance at safety, but which often cost them the trust of their fellow competitors.

The EW interview also confirmed that Big Brother 23 would follow in the footsteps of Big Brother 22 and hold a live move-in during the 90-minute premiere on July 7. The interview revealed one other crucial piece of information – details regarding the updated casting processes and standards.

Big Brother, along with other CBS reality shows like Survivor, recently agreed to join a network-wide casting initiative to include at least 50% POC, meaning that the upcoming season will hopefully see increased representation and should (in theory) lead to minority houseguests receiving better treatment – an issue which has notoriously plagued Big Brother for years.

But, with new casting initiatives in place, new twists intended to shake up gameplay and return the show to its cutthroat roots, and a fresh, returnee-free cast, our hopes are high that Big Brother 23 could be the beginning of a new era of the beloved series – one that leaves many of the show’s biggest flaws in the past.

Viewers can tune on July 7th to catch the live move-in premiere of Big Brother 23 on CBS, and stream the “24/7” live feeds on Paramount+.