Why you should be watching Audrey Middleton’s Sequester

If you like Big Brother or Survivor, you need to check out Sequester

If, like me, you enjoy social strategy games like Big Brother or Survivor but were let down by Big Brother 22 and are eagerly awaiting the release of the new season of Survivor, you need to go to YouTube right now and check out Sequester. Big Brother alum Audrey Middleton developed the idea for Sequester following her run on Big Brother 17, where she had found herself quickly becoming a target after playing a week’s worth of Big Brother over just a few days.

Rather than get brought down by the experience, she would decide to develop a social strategy game that combined elements of Big Brother and Survivor that was fast-paced for hardcore gamers like her that didn’t want to waste time just sitting around.

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She initially launched the game in 2016 as a week-long Online Reality Game (ORG) at sequesteraccess.com, which quickly grew in popularity, even drawing the attention of other Big Brother alum such as Tiffany Rousso and Michelle “Big Meech” Meyer (Big Brother 18).

In June of 2018, she would launch Sequester: The Black Hat, a live-action version of the game, which saw 23 people move into a house together to live and breathe the game 24/7. The success of Black Hat led Audrey to temporarily suspend the ORG to produce two more seasons of live-action Sequester.

Season 2 premiered five months later with a cast that included Big Brother (U.S.) and Big Brother Canada alums, Judd Daugherty (Big Brother15), Jesse Larson, Hamza Hatoum (both Big Brother Canada 6 alums), and Sindy Nguyen (Big Brother Canada 3 and 5).

Following the implementation of nationwide stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Audrey brought back the ORG by hosting Sequester Minis, roughly six-hour-long versions of the game that people could play by donating to the Sequester Patreon.

Over the past few months, Audrey has hosted minis for her patrons as well as for Big Brother and Survivor alum. Although Audrey has discontinued the minis, for the time being, the good news is that Season 4 of the live-action game is here!

So what’s Sequester all about? Let’s get into it!

Trust Us, Trust No One

In the live-action version of Sequester, a group of people moves into a house for one week, and over that week, engage in a game of social strategy much like Big Brother and Survivor. Sequester’s motto is “Trust Us, Trust No One,” and you can trust Sequester’s host Sequester Bot to shake up the game.

Every round different twists get introduced to the game, such as the Safety & Exile twist, where one player randomly becomes safe from elimination and starts a chain of safe and exiled, at-risk for elimination, players.

Unlike Big Brother or Survivor, where relationships are key, Sequester twists tempt players to throw their allies under the bus.

At the end of each round is an elimination vote. At the reading of the elimination votes, the player who gets eliminated can force three players to reveal who they voted out. Once they do, the eliminated player has one last chance to save themselves by choosing one of those players to drag with them into a Battle Match, a competition where the player who wins stays in the game.

Like its predecessors, Sequester allows players to win themselves safety by locating a Locus of Safety (LOS), a glowing disc, which, if you’re familiar with Survivor, serves as Sequester’s version of a hidden immunity idol.

A LOS can get played before the elimination votes are read or if a player is dragged into a Battle Match. However, it cannot be played under both circumstances, meaning that players have to be mindful of their actions.

If not, they may escape the elimination vote but get dragged into a Battle Match by a single enemy. By the end of the week, two players are left standing and must answer for their actions in front of a jury of their Sequester peers who will choose a winner of the $2,500 prize.

Sequester Season 4 features a stacked cast of Sequester Mini favorites such as Muna Abdulahi and Jacob Jones; Rob Has a Podcast Big Brother Live Feed Correspondent Brent Wolgamott, and Survivor: Worlds Apart and Survivor: Cambodia castaway Shirin Oskooi.

It is a must-watch for any fans of reality TV.

You can watch the premiere episode of Sequester Season 4 on the Sequester YouTube channel, where new episodes get posted every Sunday at 9/8c.