amazingracefan

Early seasons definitely had more interaction between teams and downtime things and flights themselves were part of the race. Because there is none of that now it's hard for me to really have much of an opinion on teams. And the pace is unrelenting so the episode seems light. The alliance part feels grafted onto the show rather than something that organically develops, the producers likely encourage it.

I'm not into alliances, and teams telling other teams the answer. They even have the locals give the answer, like the guy judging the building of the huts telling them what they did wrong. The main interest so far is just how incompetent teams are. The casting is very vanilla, but at least in this episode one team blew up at each other, to show they are just racing automatons. It's all fast fast fast, the old days when you actually got to know the teams more (beyond just background stuff) is long gone. Rob and Amber were good, people liked them or hated them, but at least they created an impression.

But you said it was boring to you, Enzo contributed to that by playing for second/third place and giving Cody all the information he needed. And 'boring' in an entertainment show is really an important flaw. I'm not one of those who hates people for comments in the house, it's a game. But I do prefer entertainment in reality shows, and in Big Brother that means people making moves rather than just talking about making moves. And I'm not interested in external stories, I prefer it where all contestants start level at the first episode.

Because he was that bad. The memory competitions about events in the house are so expected now it isn't as much of a test as it's supposed to be. But while the producers know most of the audience will just accept the same stuff every year they see no reason to change anything. Just change the decor/theme and that will please most it seems.

Which would have been far more interesting, from our viewer perspective.

Enzo was annoying right to the end wasn't he? Even the finale was a let down really, Cody v Nicole would have been a better final two, and maybe not unanimous. Enzo finishing third again would have been funny. I always think second place gets way too much money anyway, it's the goat/weak player money if the game is played ruthlessly. And at the end we saw how the eviction interviews should have been done. Julie Chen on screen, meaning no masks needed.

I actually came into the thread to ask ......who won the best Zoom background award? Otherwise most of the episode was a clip show again. The endurance competitions are never the most interesting to me.

It might be more interesting seeing them reacting to stuff (non gameplay things I suppose) rather than just doing a kind of fake narration.

I always skip that as well, it seems to go on for way too long anyway. And the editors really struggle to create suspense, the parts which are meant to create uncertainty can even look a bit fake like it was set up (like that Nicole/Cody confrontation).

I don't think she can win competitions just when she wants to. So this 'special episode', I'm assuming it's just a recap one?

Enzo should have put him on the block, that was just sheer stupidity. I considered that idea, but thought it might make it more predictable (at least to us). As it was random it was completely unknown who would win.

They have this every year, so they know if they get near the end they'll need to remember the chronology. Every night they probably repeat to themselves what happened on each day up to that point.

The luxury competition was actually the highlight of the episode, it was quite funny and nice to see them having some fun. The producers should play it to the Jury House, of course they won't.

The only real interest in the HoH room for the audience is the screen where they can spy on where others are in the house, but that's very rarely made part of the storyline. And the whole 'who wants to see my HoH room' has always been funny because there's never much change in the room from one week to the next.

Cody keeps talking about other people being a snake, but they all do various deals for flexibility or fake deals including him. Cody is with Enzo but he's also with Nicole. Memphis likely had more ties with him than Christmas.