Big Brother 22 May Actually Happen This Year!

California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom was set to announce the plans for Hollywood to re-open sometime last week. Well, that received quite a bit of backlash from Hollywood and he postponed the announcement. Last night he decided to drop a Friday night news bomb where Hollywood can resume production no sooner than June 12th!

Now, before you get excited, do not expect Big Brother to begin on time. Everything was shut down at a very crucial point for the season when the final touches were likely being set-up, the house prepped, etc. It would be a miracle to see the show begin on June 24th (when I think it was originally scheduled). However, I was originally anticipating a start of August or September but I am starting to believe we’ll see Big Brother 22 sometime in July!

I know skeptics will say that is way too soon, and normally they’d be right. However, here is why I think it may happen in July

1. 1. Casting has been wrapped up according to Robyn, at least to the point where all semi-finalists have been contacted. This means casting was likely still working during the shutdown and they are all probably just waiting on this order to begin the final choices.
   2. Competitions are generally recycled year to year other than the theme. And even then, Big Brother Over the Top showed they can put together average competitions with very little time between shows.
   3. Speaking of BBOTT, that is also an example of how they were willing to run the show with similar decorations.  That season began roughly two weeks after the summer season ended. While the room layouts were all still the same, it did show that CBS was willing to overlook the design aspect just to get the show out there for their experiment.

However, this just may be a very optimistic outlook of it. Another reality we have to face is that the show has to put together a plan to keep people safe and have it approved before they’re given the green light. I’d hope they have been working on that plan during this downtime, but if not, that will significantly delay things.

While it appears this is the best place to film, that is only true for the houseguests. It’s entirely possible to keep them very safe from the virus so long as production sanitizes anything they bring into the house. The problem will come with keeping production safe. There is a crew that works 24/7 in very close quarters inside the walls of that building and if one of them gets sick, it could quickly spiral out of control.

I know some have suggested they live on the set and other extreme measures, but that just isn’t realistic and shouldn’t be planned around because it would be doomed to fail. Even if they do have people live in the studio area for the summer, they should still be planning on what happens when people sneak out or food is delivered in, etc, etc.  It would be impossible to actually keep production isolated and really not worth it. Just easier and probably safer to assume anyone can be sick at any time and treat it like that.

I’m kind of rambling a little, I guess that is due to the excitement of this announcement. If you’ve made it down here, let me summarize…

• I do think we will have a season this year
• I don’t think it will be on time, and I am hoping for mid-July, but I think a realistic date is closer to early August.
• If they begin before September, it is still possible to get a solid 3 months of show in because the fall shows have also been on pause. CBS will want to fill the airtime until the shows are ready to go.

As always, I will keep you updated if I hear anything new!