BB finale

So it played out exactly as expected. Derrick wins the $500K. Cody gets the $50k for 2nd place and Donny wins the $25 K for America's Favorite.
Now we face the bleak hole torn in the social fabric. A period of mourning always follows, but we've done this for 15 years and we know that we will recover and next summer will return with season 17 !

In the meantime we have Survivor and The Amazing Race premiering tonight.

http://www.buddytv.com/slideshows/big-brother/the-25-best-and-5-worst-moments-from-big-brother-16-79140.aspx?utm_source=newsletter9-25-14&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email_newsletter

Thank You For A Great Big Brother 16 Season!

Posted: 26 Sep 2014 10:00 AM PDT

The Big Brother 16 has come to an end after an exciting season of highs and lows but an extremely entertaining one none the less. As we wrap up the last few parts of the summer show I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for joining us.
Big Brother 16 on CBS

Big Brother 16 season – Source: CBS

Coming off a tumultuous season I wasn’t sure what we’d get this time around but a mostly solid cast came together and moved things along while, for the most part, dodging issues of the past round. The twists were a mix of core game impacting and side show distractions though I’m still not sure why it’d be considered the “most twisted season ever.” All the same I appreciated all the extra content Battle of the Block and Team America gave us to discuss each week.

The drama may have been mild at times, but it was certainly there and plenty of strategic moves kept the season rolling. Along with getting to see an absolutely great player take home the win I’ll remember this season as my first chance to be part of a live eviction audience thanks to CBS’s invitation and your efforts to make us a standout in the crowd. That was an absolute dream come true for this fan.

Readership took a healthy leap up here on the site this season and I’d like to thank Branden, Adam Poch, and Judd Daugherty for contributing a season of hard work and dedicated writing to help make that happen. We truly appreciate your support by visiting us, recommending our site to your Big Brother fan friends, and especially going through us to get your Live Feed subscriptions!

With confirmation that Big Brother 17 will be here next summer plus another season ordered by CBS on top of that we’re confident that we’ve got a lot of fun left ahead of us for our favorite reality series. Luckily it’s not the only reality series we cover though and there’s a lot to do in the off-season.

Next up we’re covering the just-started Survivor season at SurvivorFandom.com. Big Brother Canada will return in the spring and we’ve got an entire BBCAN site dedicated to that right here at Big Brother Network. There will also be American Idol fun to be had with our coverage at AmericanIdolNet.com.

Of course I’ll continue to cover news, updates, and any drama that follows the Big Brother 16 crew outside of the house as they return to their regular lives. Last season kept us thoroughly entertained in the off-season and I’m guessing we’ll have plenty to discuss from this season’s HGs as well.

Thank you again. Your readership and contribution to the discussions are what make this site so great as we continue to grow and expand our coverage and community every season. Be sure to join us on Facebook, Twitter, and get our Email Updates so you don’t miss any of the fun we’re sharing!

Diary Room: Adam Poch On Big Brother 16 – That’s A Wrap

Posted: 26 Sep 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Big Brother – the show we hate to love, and the show we love to hate. Every summer begins with hope that this will be the best season ever. We get so excited waiting for Julie to reveal the new design of the house, find out what the twists are gonna be, meet the cast & read / watch the preseason interviews – all leading up to the Superbowl of Reality TV – OPENING NIGHT!!! We make our picks for who we are going to root for – scour the web to find out more about these people – see how many degrees of separation between us and the new houseguests.
Big Brother HG - Adam Poch

Big Brother HG Adam Poch – Credit: Greg P Photo

Then the show starts and we find ourselves staying up way too late watching the live feeds, reading recaps & previews on Big Brother Network – refreshing our browsers every 10 minutes to find out the results of the competitions / nominations. Our non-BB loving friends & family start to get sick of us talking & posting about it non-stop. Somewhere along the way – we find new HGs to root for, HGs to root against – comparing players to previous HG’s- complaining about how this season does not live up to our preseason expectations. We continue on this roller coaster for 3 months until Julie Chen finally pulls out the keys and declares a winner.

It’s our summer obsession and when it’s over – despite all the other shows on TV – we start looking forward to the next season. Now that CBS has announced instead of the usual renewal for one season, it has been renewed for 2 – and the rumors are starting that one of those seasons will be an All-Star season. I wonder how many times we will hear someone say “If (insert our favorite HGs name here) is not on All-Stars, I am not watching!” Yet, we all know the truth… YOU WILL WATCH!!!! Why? Because we are addicted to this show like no other show on TV.

BUT FIRST – lets take a look back at Season 16 – which I called “The Season of the Safe Moves.” These are just a few things about this season that I loved, and that I hated…

LOVED – the Have Not Room. We saw the effects of the ice cold room & slop week 2 when Zach had a major meltdown. Big Brother is not Survivor, the HGs get a pantry full of food, beds, shelter, etc… so when they are forced to limit what they can eat, and probably the worst sleeping conditions yet, it takes a toll pn their psyche.

HATED – the fact that they did not have to fight in a competition to see who would still have these luxuries, and who would be forced to suffer. Big Brother made such a big deal about the FitBit activity bracelets that they all had to wear, but only once was that used to determine who would be a have not. I get it – with the Battle of the Block taking up time on the show there was not enough time to do another competition, but feed watchers always complain about the HGs sleeping all day. If they knew that being lazy would force them to become Have Nots – we could have had more excitement during the day. (Especially for us East Coast viewers).

LOVED – the 2 HoH twist. Similar to the MVP twist from last summer, the potential for shenanigans and scheming could have made this season pretty exciting. Knowing that just cause you were HoH, you could still go home this week – would force the players into altering their preseason strategies.

HATED – that only once did someone go from HoH to evicted. Again, similar to the MVP twist – it was a bit of a letdown when the HoH’s all wanted to work together to protect themselves. I guess that’s because we never saw a clear house divide. The 2 night move in would have been a perfect opportunity to split the house in half from the start – forcing them into 2 tribes (a la Survivor) – and each week – you get one HG from each side to be HoH. This would have had them nominating strong players instead of weak ones.

LOVED – even though a big alliance formed the first week – they never seemed to really trust each other. Each week the remaining HoH would have a grand plan to turn on one of their own – citing different reasons.

HATED – that no one ever did. How much different would the season have been if Cody replaced Victoria week 4 with Caleb instead of Donny?

LOVED – Caleb threatening to throw the BotB to keep Frankie on the block.

HATED – Caleb not waiting to see what the challenge was before sitting out – he basically helped Frankie win the BotB by himself. We saw the same challenge in BB14 – and once Frank got over the learning curve he killed it to win HoH.

LOVED – Donny! As I mentioned in the opening – we always get excited to meet the new cast each season. Donny is the type of player that I like to see. He is not a model / actor type – trying to use BB as a springboard to fame & fortune. He was just a normal guy, who loved the show, and appreciated the opportunity. It looks like I was not the only one who loved this guy – as he took home America’s Favorite by a landslide.

HATED – how everyone ganged up on Donny & wanted him out each week. Yes, it’s because he was a bit different & quirky, and they couldn’t figure him out. That’s because there was nothing to figure out – he was who he said he was, but paranoia in that house takes over.

LOVED – Derrick! We have not seen a HGs manipulate the rest of the house as good as Derrick did since BB10 Dan. Derrick was not a preseason pick for me. But as the game played on – watching him say the right things to each person at the right time was a thing of beauty.

HATED – Derrick! His mind manipulation got so many people to second guess their own actions – and they would end up making a safe move that they thought was good for their games, but as we saw, it was only good for his game. As a fan, this is not what we want to see, as an ex-player it was genius.

LOVED – the punishments given out this season. Watching Cody kick himself in the ass for 24 hours, Brittany kicking the soccer ball 2400 times, Nicole having to wear not 1 but 2 outfits for the week, Cody in the Dinosaur suit, Caleb & Victoria as Adam & Eve – these types of things are what makes Big Brother better than the rest of the reality shows. There is so much downtime during the week – you need some stupidity to break up the monotony.

HATED – that Frankie, Caleb, & Christine got to go to the Dallas Cowboys training camp. As a 30+ year fan of the Dallas Cowboys that was so awesome, and ok, I didn’t hate it – I was just jealous… until someone reminded me, I got to meet Tori Spelling on the show. But still….

LOVED – Devin & Zach’s unpredictability, this made for some fun moments on both the feeds & the CBS show. We now have new lingo because of this #DevinHasADaughter & #FruitLoopDingus

HATED – the unanimous (or near unanimous) votes every week. Despite the edit each week – we all pretty much knew who would be going home after the Monday Veto meeting. Furthermore – week 3 Nicole & Christine had talked about throwing hinky votes to keep Devin & evict Caleb. That would have been so great as Beast Mode Cowboy would have been thrown into a tizzy! Only 6 votes the entire season were cast for the person that stayed. 10 unanimous votes. Which again, proves my case that BB16 was the Season of the Safe Moves!

LOVED – writing 2 columns each week for Big Brother Network. As a fan of the show I love reading the content on this site, as an ex-player I am glad I got the opportunity to share some of my insights from a players perspective. I also loved getting into it with some of the commentators. The passion we all have for this show is unheralded, and we all think our opinion is the best opinion. I never took anything personally, and I hope you didn’t either.

HATED – that this is my last column for the season. But hopefully you all enjoyed reading my weekly previews, as well as my Bacon/Tofu rankings each week.

So, there ya have it! BB16 is done – BB17 is 9 months away. Hopefully the time will go fast, so we can go back to loving & hating our favorite TV show!

Let me know what some of your favorite moments of the season were in the comment section below.

From outside the Big Brother Network house, I’m Adam Poch… Goodnight!

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Derrick Levasseur – Big Brother 16 Winner Interview

Posted: 25 Sep 2014 01:00 PM PDT
Derrick Levasseur, Winner of Big Brother 16

Derrick Levasseur, Winner of Big Brother 16 – Source: CBS

Derrick Levasseur pulled off the perfect game last night on Big Brother 16 when he was crowned the winner after 97 days of maintaining control of his game and house while avoiding ever being named as a nominee. Today I spoke with Derrick about his game, the moves he made, and what it was all like.

Matthew Boyer – Big Brother Network (BBN): Congratulations on your win. That was an impressive and well-earned victory last night.

Derrick Levasseur: Yeah, it worked out well. You know what, I trusted my boy Cody regardless of who won and it worked out pretty well.

BBN: Right there on that, your trust in Cody. Did you ever consider throwing Round 3 or were you going full steam to win that?

Derrick: Although I trusted him 110%, I was not going to throw that competition and have something go wrong because you never know in the game of Big Brother. I was absolutely trying to beat him. The questions got me a little thrown off because to be honest with you, I think the Jurors switched up a couple of their opinions to throw us off. They got me on a couple of them, but it came down to the tie-breaker and he was the closest. More power to him. Kudos to him.

BBN: At what point in the season did you say to yourself, “okay, I’ve got this. I’m going to win.”?

Derrick: I definitely saw a light. I knew what I had to do to have the best opportunity and I needed two alliance members in the F3 with me regardless of who won the Final HoH if I didn’t do it myself that they would bring me. I knew I had Cody and he didn’t know how close I was with Victoria. I also had Victoria who didn’t know how close I was with Cody. It worked out perfectly.

Caleb was really the last big move I had to make and at that point was when I really knew my chances of being in the F2 were almost 100%.

BBN: Looking at those Jury votes, 7-2. What do you think cost you those two votes?

Derrick: I don’t want to speculate, but I will tell you this. Donny pegged me pretty early as to what type of player I was and I did put him on the Block one week, but Cody put him on the Block twice. Frankly, I think it came down to a personal opinion. I don’t think he based it on game. I think he based on who he liked more, which happens. I think he liked Cody more in the game. I think he thought he was more genuine in the game and that’s what he based his decision upon. I respect that.

As far as Jocasta, she was completely off-base. What she’s referring to is that we prayed together every night. I guess she was assuming that was a strategy, but it really wasn’t. I was praying because I’m not a very religious person outside of the house. I thought it was not only a chance for us to bond but to talk about my grandfather who passed away, talk about my kid, and I actually enjoyed it.

I guess she thought it was a strategic move, but I don’t know why. She wasn’t really winning any comps at the time. I think she was hurt or felt betrayed. Again, I respect her decision and admire her as a person. I personally wouldn’t have played the way she played, but if she was able to win playing the way she intended on playing it would have been phenomenal.

BBN: Let’s jump to Team America. You surprised a lot of HGs with that. How did joining Team America impact your strategy?

Derrick: Being part of a team, it was tough. My methodology behind everything was kept close to the chest. So when we discussed how to complete these missions they, Donny and Frankie, would get an idea of how my mind works. I didn’t like doing that. It was something that I knew we had an obligation to do and I wasn’t going to deviate from that because I felt like we had a responsibility to America to attempt these missions.

As far as Donny is concerned, I knew very early on he was coming after me. I kinda put that aside to keep my obligations to Team America intact. But when I brought him upstairs for one of the missions and he didn’t want to do it for his own personal game and even made the comment, “I’m not here for Team America. I’m here for Donny Thompson.” I felt like that was enough for the Feedsters to know Derrick’s got to do what he’s got to do now. That’s what I needed to hear to in order to know it’s time to play this game and Donny was going to have to go.

BBN: Speaking of Donny having to go and Team America. We saw the mission where you could choose your own adventure. Why didn’t you consider keeping Donny and getting what looked to be an easy $5K then evicting him the next week?

Derrick: First and foremost, the way the mission was designed it had to be in play before the Veto ceremony. So we were kinda mixed on would it even apply. They wouldn’t tell you and that’s why we failed some of the ones we thought we passed. We didn’t know that for certain.

Give credit where credit’s due, Donny was an incredible player and if I wasn’t playing against him I would have been a huge fan of him. He had a heart of a lion and played incredible under pressure. You know what, if you gave him an opportunity then he’s going to capitalize on it. That’s what we knew with him.

Frankly, to try and flip the house to keep him when Cody and them were so adamant to get rid of him, it would have raised some red flags.

BBN: Preseason you told me you’d start a tight alliance with one player and that’s what you did. Did you go in there, profile the HGs, and pick Cody for it or did you two come together organically?

Derrick: It was a couple of things. I noticed with the Bomb Squad that he was kinda on the low end of the totem pole and so was I. That’s what I used to start our initial conversation. I saw him as a very candid, trustworthy guy. In addition he’s not a bad looking guy so I knew he could play another facet of the game I couldn’t play because of my marriage. I thought that was advantageous to get in with some of the girls.

BBN: Your Hitmen alliance appeared solid, but was there ever a time when you thought you’d have to cut Cody and take Victoria?

Derrick: Not at all. I knew if I took Victoria it wasn’t a guarantee I would win because I knew there would be some people who had made some comments about taking Victoria. Out of spite they could have voted to give her the money.

There was a time when Cody and Christine were getting very close and I was concerned that if Christine was playing a similar game to mine that he might consider taking her to the F2. It was Week 9 I came to that realization and Week 12 I sent her home.

BBN: Tell us about Photogate where you sent back your HoH photo from home. There was a lot of speculation on what was going on there and who was in the photo.

Derrick: I’m glad you brought that up. I want to discuss it. Very simple. It was actually a picture of my father, his wife, and my daughter. It was a little grainy and I didn’t know what they were trying to do here. Because we were on the Double Evict I put it in the DR and asked if I could get another one. They never got it back to me.

There were rumors that I was upset about the picture, but the letter was from my father as well and I read that out loud to all the Feedsters. It wasn’t something I was offended by. It was my daughter and my father and his wife. I had no problem with it. I asked if I could get a different one and just never got another photo.

BBN: What’s next for you now that you’ve received this big payday. Are you going right back to work or taking some time off?

Derrick: I’m actually going to have to go straight back to work. I burned all my vacation time. As far as what the future holds, I’d love to have some way to stay more in touch with the game than just watching. I don’t know what that might be, but I’m hoping some doors are opening.

I would love to be involved in this game on a daily basis like you are because I love this game. I think it’s an awesome experience for someone to have and an even better experience to watch.

BBN: Congratulations again on your win. It was a masterful game to watch this season and I’m very happy that you were able to pull it off and prove how a smart game can earn the victory.

Watch Derrick’s preseason interview with us and see how his initial plans matched up with his experience and the way he ended up playing Big Brother.