In previous years, Big Brother fans had to wait a whole year for summer to come around again for a new season of the reality competition show. Luckily for fans, CBS is switching up the tried-and-true Big Brother formula and introducing a new fall season to premiere on the digital streaming platform CBS All Access. This digital edition, called BB: Over The Top is switching things up by featuring only one full episode weekly and showing everything else that happens live on the feeds scattered throughout the house. Since the format is slightly different, should fans expect any other changes? How long will the Big Brother: Over The Top season be?
In Big Brother history, the length of time usually depends on the number of houseguests in the competition. With one person eliminated weekly (and of course, double evictions and competitions that allow former evictees to re-enter the house), Big Brother has lasted anywhere from 10-13 weeks throughout its history. While recent seasons have gotten longer — Big Brother 18 alone came it at 13 weeks — it looks like BB: Over The Top is going to be on the shorter side, and will be ending after 10 weeks, according to CBS.
With 10 weeks and 24/7 coverage of the house, that is 1680 hours of footage for fans to pour over, and that's not even counting the fact that most feeds are covering two different scenes at the same time, nearly doubling the amount of content. If that sounds like a lot, don't worry — much of it will be sleeping, and CBS will be providing weekly recap episodes so that fans can keep up with the going-ons in the house without spending their days obsessing over live feed footage.
While it may not seem like a long time, losing three weeks off of the running time that Big Brother has become used to does speed things up. For contrast, during Week 10 of BB18 there were still seven people in the house. The last season to only go for 10 weeks was Big Brother 14 in 2012. While a shorter schedule means that fans won't be able to spend as much time getting to know the houseguests that make it to the very end, it could be for the best as the action in the house tends to slow down as it has less and less houseguests. A good example of this is BB18, which, by Week 11, had far more drama in the jury house than in the actual BB house itself.
Big Brother: Over The Top promises a season's worth of content in a new, digital format that should appeal to BB diehards and casual fans alike. It's not entirely clear just how this experiment in reality programming will play out, but there's no denying that this could be a game-changer for how Big Brother and reality television as a whole play out. Big Brother: Over The Top begins its 10-week run on CBS All Access on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.
Images: Monty Brinton/CBS, Giphy
