#poehlersvortex

Feeds:

You definitely DO NOT have to pay for the feeds at all! 

I’m choosing to this year because I have a LOT of time on my hands, this house is CRAZY this year, and I have no self control :)

A lot of times there are links floating around the bb17 tag of free streams and stuff but they’re often unreliable

Before I bought the feeds I usually checked jokersupdates.com and followed some bb feed updaters on twitter to stay updated

the reason you need to pay attention to what goes on in the live feeds is because the actual CBS show is edited so poorly that they sometimes leave out key information, or the show favors certain houseguests because they do well in the ratings. Therefore the show doesn’t give the clearest picture. Like a lot of the horrible Frankie stuff last year wasn’t aired on TV until much of the show’s fanbase really turned on him because he was being a huge dick.

Basic Rules/layout of the show/ terminology

Basically the show is like “Survivor in a house”: The goal is to outlast the rest of the houseguests! They are locked in a house all summer with essentially no contact with the outside world. 

It airs on CBS on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays

(yes. three days a week. it can be a lot.)

The show also likes to use “twists” which mixes up the game a lot and sort of changes the pacing of the show to keep things interesting and to keep the houseguests on their toes. More on that later.

This year, one twists they unfortunately brought back is “Battle of the Block” where instead of one Head of Household (HOH) there are now two. The HOH’s each nominate two other people in the house for eviction (to be kicked out at the end of the week by vote of the whole house). So the week starts off with four people “on the block”. Then they have the “Battle of the Block” (BOB) competition, where the nominees compete against each other to dethrone one of the HOH’s and to get themselves off the block.

For example: Amy and Tina both won HOH. Amy nominates Seth and Adam, Tina nominates Jimmy and Alec. Seth and Adam will compete against Jimmy and Alec. Seth and Adam win the BOB and therefore Amy is no longer HOH and Seth and Adam are no longer “on the block”. That makes Tina HOH and Jimmy and Alec are nominated still.

Next comes the Veto competition, where a 6 houseguests (HOH, the 2 nominees, and 3 chosen at random) compete for the Veto, which can save a person from the block. 

For example if Tina won the Veto, she could either chose to save one of her nominees from eviction and replace with another person or keep nominations the same and Jimmy or Alec will be evicted.

Many use the veto as an opportunity to “backdoor” a houseguest, a common method of gameplay. 

For example: Tina really wants to get rid of Jane, but Jane is AMAZING at competitions and would likely win the BOB or the Veto and save herself from eviction. Therefore it is in Tina’s best interest to nominate Jimmy and Alec as “pawns”, hoping that the three of them can win the Veto, save one of those nominees, and replace them with Jane.

Evictions occur LIVE on TV on Thursdays. The house votes out one of the nominees. The HOH and the two nominees may not vote (HOH only votes in the event of a tie). Following the eviction, an HOH comp occurs, and then week essentially restarts. This continues until there are only 3 houseguests left, and then there are special finale rules and stuff.

There’s also Have/Have-Not’s where either through comps or HOH choice, some houseguests essentially get stuck as Have Not’s, where they eat oatmeal, take cold showers, and sleep on terrible beds for a week (this year it’s dentist chairs). It’s used as a tool to weaken players, so if it’s HOH’s choice, it’s a good way to target people who are strong competitors. 

That’s basically the gist of the actual workings of the show, but there’s a lot that goes on, but this is key info to know since the season just started. There will be a jury about halfway through the season, and those people who are evicted are put into sequester until the end, and they end up choosing who wins the half-a-mil at the end of the game.

Twists. fucking twists.

So somewhere along the line, the producers thought they needed to add like 100 twists to make the show more interesting. I find them to be annoying most of the time (like BOB), because they tend to interfere with the social games that I basically live for, and they take up a lot of air time that would be better served for seeing conversations and such in the house. 

This season is like the ultimate twist season, so you need to know each one.

First: Battle of the Block. This isn’t normally a thing and will go away once it isn’t numerically feasible anymore. Usually it’s just one HOH per week. This twist adds so much more competition content to the show and takes away from a lot of what happens in the house socially.

Second: The Twin Twist! They did this back in season 5 but basically, this year there is a set of identical twins that are switching back and forth and trying to fool the houseguests into thinking they’re just one person. It’s pretty safe to assume based on evidence so far that it’s Liz (and her twin Julia). If they don’t get evicted in the first 5 weeks, then they are allowed to reveal the secret and both are allowed to play the game as individuals. 

Finally: The BB Takeover. Essentially the “we heard you like twists, so here’s some twists to go with your twists.” Every week there’s a new surprise twist. This past week, two houseguests had to sit out of the HOH comps and they then ended up getting to “fast forward” a week and are not allowed to be nominated. This twist ends after the eviction and a new twist will be introduced. (No one knows what the rest of the twists will be this season)

Other tidbits

This game is about lying, deceiving, gossip, and drama. The motto is “expect the unexpected”

Julie Chen is the host. She is an angel. You’ll see her for sure every Thursday for the Live show.

This show is known for being “rigged”, meaning that production often favors certain houseguests and to keep them in the house longer. They might ask them leading questions in diary room sessions, or pick specific competitions that will allow the houseguest they favor the have a better shot at winning. Or they’ll use a twist to end up saving someone at the last minute. It’s been going on for so long it’s almost part of the game now.

Remember that what you’re seeing on TV might not be the whole picture and so keeping an eye on what’s happening in the feeds is often better for you to understand how people actually are or why some fans favor certain people over others. 

A “Double Eviction” or two will likely occur this season. Basically what this means is that a whole week’s worth of competition and nomination occurs LIVE during the Thursday episode. When this happens Julie will clearly explain what happens. 

I guess that’s everything I can think that you would need to know. Normally if you had missed one week, you wouldn’t have too difficult of a time catching up, but the house is full of some strong players and a lot of drama this year so things are a little crazy. Basically if you go to CBS.com you can watch the first few episodes that have aired and catch up.