Big Brother 14 -2012 Day 20

Nothing of great importance will happen in the house until Thursday. Tomorrow's CBS show has already happened, yesterday, and the nominations and POV are as below. But there was a volley ball game in the back yard last night. No net, or real ball. Just towels on the ground to mark the 'net' and a big vinyl beach ball which was uncontrollable.

I finally figured out why the 'day count' in the house is different than the count since the season started on CBS. It's because they are counting from the time they went into sequester about 5 days before the show started. They are put up in a hotel and are removed from all outside contact. Which continues in the house of course which is why they don't/can't talk about current events. They also can't sing or whistle. There are two reasons for this: It could be annoying to other players and result in arguments..."I'll sing if I want to...." etc. But more importantly to the prods. is that it avoids having to pay royalties for a "public performance" of a recognizable song. They live in terror to avoid this....

Monday, July 30, 2012
'Big Brother 14' Spoilers: A Big Move at the Week 3 Power of Veto Ceremony
John Kubicek

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

Shane's tenure as Head of Household on Big Brother 14 has been quite unpredictable. He went back and forth on the nominations and even his coach didn't know what was going to happen until the keys were pulled out of the box. So is the Power of Veto ceremony equally unpredictable? Absolutely.

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains Big Brother 14 spoilers.

Shane won the Power of Veto and he used it to save Ashley. Frank was nominated as a replacement.

You may be wondering what the hell is going on, and that's a damn good question. The short answer is that Shane is very easily manipulated and Janelle and her team put the full-court press on him Sunday. And now the only other HG who has won a competition is about to get backdoored.

Now it's time to see Boogie in action. It's going to be a lot harder to save Frank this time and, since they were COMPLETELY blindsided by this decision (it happened late Sunday night after Boogie and his team went to bed), it's going to be an awkward rest of the week.

But the real story is Shane, who has proven himself to be a physical, competitive threat, but when it comes to strategy, he is wishy-washy and very easily manipulated and swayed. Even if he didn't admit it, it's obvious he has NEVER seen this show. He basically agrees with whoever speaks last and he just made the best possible move for everyone else in the house, but the worst possible move for himself.

Joe begged Shane to let him stay a few more weeks for his family and then vowed to never vote against Shane, even if he's nominated against a member of Janelle's team. I'll believe that when I see it.

Ashley turned on the waterworks and manipulated Shane emotionally, acting like the dumb, helpless little girl who just wants to help Shane. She's playing up this "dumb blonde" act waaaay too much.

Wil started talking to Frank a lot, trying to make Shane think he had a deal with Frank so Shane would become suspicious and turn on Frank. Wil also told Shane to backdoor Ian, thus continuing to make Shane wonder why he would target Ian instead of Frank. Of course Wil doesn't actually have any deal with Frank.

And finally, Janelle talked to Britney about how the coaches are DEFINITELY coming into the game this week and how they need to get rid of Frank so they have an easier chance of winning.

Heck, even Danielle was secretly scheming against Shane's best interests. She talked to Dan who made her realize that, while keeping the nominations the same is obviously what's best for Shane, getting rid of Frank is what's best for her.

All of this worked perfectly for Janelle's team and, as she told Wil, they just successfully broke up the obvious alliance of Shane, Danielle and Frank (who've called themselves the Three Amigos).

Now Shane and Danielle are in a Final 5 deal with Janelle's team, though deals and alliances this season seem to last a maximum of one week. Think about it, first Britney and Janelle's teams were in a Final 6 deal. Then it was Boogie and Janelle's teams. Now it's these five. In three weeks, Janelle's team has been involved in three different Final 5/6 deals with everyone else in the game. If that doesn't make them floaters, I don't know what does.

I'm incredibly saddened by this move because, while it's definitely a big one, it's not in the best interest of Shane. Janelle's team will inevitably turn on him sooner rather than later because they want to get rid of the big threats, and the dude has won almost every competition there is. And Britney is going along with it because it helps her potential game if she plays. And Danielle is going along with it because she knows she's safer with Janelle's team than with Boogie's team.

But how does this benefit Shane? He's backdooring someone who genuinely wants to work with him, and someone who could actually win competitions to help him. Joe might be loyal and he can promise never to nominate Shane, but Joe is NEVER going to win HoH or a PoV, so it doesn't matter.

As Britney said, getting rid of Frank is what's best for Janelle's team, and if they want to do it so badly, then they should win HoH and do it and stop getting Shane to do their dirty work. Also, they had the opportunity to do it week 1 and they didn't, so if Frank is such a huge threat, why did they keep him?

Britney is the sole voice of reason for not doing this, telling Shane that Boogie will go around telling everyone that Shane cannot be trusted because he promised he wouldn't nominate Frank. She's absolutely right, but Shane is one of those idiotic players who thinks that since he didn't nominate Frank the first time, that's all the matters. Shane also thinks that, because Frank got to play in the Power of Veto, then it means he's not backdooring Frank. That just shows he has no idea what backdooring means, and neither does Danielle, because she keeps talking about how Frank backdoored her last week, even though she didn't get evicted.

Even worse, while the newbies don't realize it, they're getting rid of a powerful ally. If/when the coaches enter this game, (that would be WHEN, no doubt about that ) everything is going to change and, if the newbies are smart, they will instantly turn on the coaches (otherwise we get a repeat of last season where the newbies offer up their lives for the veterans and get slaughtered one by one). And without Frank, there's a good chance the coaches (especially Boogie and Janelle) will just dominate the competitions.

Shane is setting himself up for failure. He's going to be the biggest tool in Big Brother history, getting used and manipulated. He's going to do all the hard work, winning multiple competitions and backdooring the biggest threat in the game, and then he's inevitably going to get screwed over the second the weaklings scrape together the power to do so.

Shane and Danielle sometimes refer to themselves as Jeff and Jordan 2.0. He must not realize that this story doesn't end well for the guy. He will win competitions, protect his girl, make big moves to get out a huge threat (see Jeff's use of the Coup d'Etat to evict Jessie or the way he won HoH and PoV in the same week to backdoor Russell in season 11 and Daniele in season 13), and then he'll get voted out once the other side gets the power and his girl will skate by to the end.

And as soon as Shane is evicted, the shrill voices of Janelle and Wil shall cackle with delight over how they used this big, dumb ox to do their bidding and then tossed him aside like used Kleenex. That is a diary room session I am NOT looking forward to. Oh I don't know, it sounds like pretty good value for our entertainment dollar to me.

'Big Brother' By-the-Numbers: Why the Power of Veto Doesn't Matter
Monday, July 30, 2012

John Kubicek
Senior Writer, BuddyTV

Houseguests on Big Brother love talking about competition wins. Everyone knows Janelle Pierzina is the Comp Queen and this season Shane Meaney has dominated the game.

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains Big Brother 14 spoilers.

This week Shane won his third straight Power of Veto, meaning he's basically won five of the first six competitions (he was a member of the winning team for the first HoH, though Britney gave it to Willie).

But does it matter? Statistically speaking, no. You might think it looks good on your resume to have so many wins, but in the history of Big Brother, no player who has won three or more Power of Veto competitions has ever won the game.

You read that right. If you win at least three PoVs, you won't win the game. In fact, you won't even go that far. Of the nine HGs who have earned at least three Veto wins in a single season, only two managed to make it to the finale (season 8's Daniele Donato and season 10's Memphis).

Since season 6, every year has had at least one HG to score three or more PoV wins, a Veto King or Queen, but they inevitably fail to win the game. James Rhine picked up four wins in season 6 and still only finished in seventh place. Janelle won five during the All-Stars season, but was evicted in third place.

More recently, season 11's Michele Noonan and season 12's Britney Haynes turned three PoV wins into fourth place finishes. And Brendon Villegas won three PoV competitions in season 12 AND season 13, but still never finished better than sixth place.

The most interesting case given Shane's current situation might be season 9's Crazy James Zinkand, who is the only other person to win three PoV competitions in a row. And he was evicted in sixth place, which came as soon as he stopped winning the Veto.

The moral of the story is that winning the Power of Veto competition isn't the best way to win the game, it's the best way to make you a huge target everyone tries to get out of the house.

(Side Note: Another interesting statistical fact is that, in the past five seasons, 70 percent of all Veto winners have been men. Clearly there's a gender bias at work as well. There's typically a gender gap in the HoH competitions as well, but those numbers were changed dramatically last year as women won 10 of the 12 HoHs in season 13.)

On the other hand, winning multiple HoHs is a sure-fire way to win the game. Throughout the history of Big Brother there have been 10 players who won three or more HoH competitions in a single season. And six of them were winners (Drew Daniel, Mike "Boogie" Malin, Evel Dick Donato, Dan Gheesling, Hayden Moss and Rachel Reilly). And the remaining four did pretty well too, with Ryan Quicksall finishing in second during season 9, Janelle finishing third during All-Stars and season 2's Hardy Ames-Hill and season 5's Jennifer "Nakomis" Dedmon each winding up in fourth.

The numbers don't lie. If you want to win the game, you need to win at least three HoH competitions. And if you want to get evicted before the finale, win a whole bunch of PoV competitions. Sorry Shane, but unless you can win the Power of Veto every single week, you may be in trouble.