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Big Brother’s Jury Q&A format needs to change

By Noah Mussay

Season 22 of BIG BROTHER ALL-STARS follows a group of people living together in a house outfitted with 94 HD cameras and 113 microphones, recording their every move 24 hours a day. Each week, someone will be voted out of the house, with the last remaining Houseguest receiving the grand prize of $500,000. Airdate: September 3, 2020 (8:00-9:00PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network Pictured: Kaysar Ridha and Christmas Abbott Photo: Best Possible Screen Grab/CBS 2020 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Season 22 of BIG BROTHER ALL-STARS follows a group of people living together in a house outfitted with 94 HD cameras and 113 microphones, recording their every move 24 hours a day. Each week, someone will be voted out of the house, with the last remaining Houseguest receiving the grand prize of $500,000. Airdate: September 3, 2020 (8:00-9:00PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network Pictured: Kaysar Ridha and Christmas Abbott Photo: Best Possible Screen Grab/CBS 2020 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved /
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Big Brother needs to bring back the old Jury Q&A format

In just a little over a month, two Big Brother All-Stars will sit in the Final Two chairs on finale night, waiting with bated breath while a jury of their Big Brother peers votes for the winner of the second Big Brother All-Stars season. However, before the votes are cast, the members of the jury will have the opportunity to ask questions of the Final Two to better understand both players’ games.

The Jury Q&A is the moment where everything is laid bare as the truth finally comes out. It’s arguably the most important moment of the season, so why is it no longer treated that way?

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If you’ve been watching Big Brother for a while now, or at least gone back to watch some seasons before Big Brother 11, you’ll remember that the endgame, including the Jury Q&A, used to look very different. For starters, all parts of the final HOH Competition used to play out a week before finale night, which meant that the Final Two would spend a week in the house alone together.

With extra time to fill, the Final Two would meet with the Jury following the Jury Roundtable, and in an open forum similar to the Jury Roundtable. In this format, they’d have at least two hours to plead their case to the Jury before the Jury made their decision.

In its current format, however, the Final Two have a little less than 10 minutes, barring technical difficulties or marriage proposals, to plead their case and answer the Jury’s limited number of allotted questions.

Among the many changes that I believe Big Brother should make to improve the game for the fans and players alike is that it should bring back the original Jury Q&A format, and here’s why.

Three months of gameplay can’t be explained in a five-minute Jury Q&A

When it comes down to it, the result of three months’ worth of gameplay shouldn’t rest on a five-minute Jury Q&A. Big Brother is a game of social politics and manipulation. It can take weeks to pit other players against each other and use that conflict to climb the social ladder. Since Big Brother is such a subtle game, players often don’t realize they’ve gotten duped until it’s too late.

While players have the opportunity to use their goodbye messages to explain the subtleties of their game, they can only explain so much in the time allotted. As a result, the juror may still head off to the Jury House with more questions than answers, making the Jury Q&A imperative.

However, in its current format, the Jury Q&A does little to allow the Final Two players an opportunity to shed light on their respective games.

Each of the Final Two houseguests has roughly 45 seconds to answer each question asked. Their Q&A answers must be short, and while that makes the Q&A a great exercise in public speaking, it does not take into account how multi-layered one player’s game can be.

If you’re a well-spoken player like Steve Moses, then this isn’t a problem, especially if you’re sitting next to someone like Liz Nolan, whose performance in front of the Jury made Steve look like his ally Vanessa Rousso. However, if both Final Two players could use a lesson or two in public speaking, such as Tyler Crispen and Kaycee Clark, the Jury is left to make a decision based on their preconceived notions of each player coming into the Q&A. If you’re Tyler, a strategic mastermind who couldn’t quite find the words in 45 seconds to right some wrongs, this could be a problem.

However, with the original Jury Q&A format, which is more conversational, a player like Tyler or Dan Gheesling in Big Brother 14 can expand upon the juror’s questions, which may then lead the jurors to have more questions, allowing the Final Two to make sure that no stone is left unturned.

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What do you think of the current Big Brother Jury Q&A format? Let us know in the comments.

Big Brother All-Stars airs on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8/7c on CBS.

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