Sonja Flemming/CBS
Last night saw the return of CBS’s Big Brother, which I confess I haven’t watched yet. But what interests me most about the show is simply that it’s still around. When it first began in 2000—the dawn of primetime reality TV—people like me thought it would either blow up huge like Survivor or flame out. It never really did either one, but simply managed to reliably stick around, with the simplest, most elemental of reality premises: people simply being in a house and conniving against each other.
I personally can’t manage the commitment to follow the show every airing; dipping in a few times a summer does the job for me. For bigger Brother fans, do you think the show’s gotten better, worse or stayed the same over time? And anyone want to stick up for Julie Chen?