The day after Sarah Hanlon was named the winner of Big Brother Canada 3, I headed to the backyard to do extended interviews with the entire cast. I caught up with Naeha Sareen to discuss her time in the house. I asked her if Sarah’s win was bittersweet in the sense that while Sarah was one of her closest allies in the house, if Naeha had managed to just get past Day 15, she might have made to the endgame as well. Naeha opened up and said that she feels incomplete as she was unable to show what she was truly made of in the Big Brother house. The Toronto-based chiropractor explained that it didn’t matter to her that she didn’t make the jury but that she just didn’t get to show her true capabilities. We also discussed the twists that seemed to plague the show’s third season and whether they belong in the game at all. Naeha talked about the fact that almost all of the game’s best players seemed to leave because of a twist and this was a sentiment that I also echoed for most of the season. Naeha offered a great explanation about why it is becoming increasingly unlikely that we will see a mastermind type of player on the show as positioning yourself to be ‘twist-proof’ will result in players not wanting to make big moves as they might be punished for them down the line when Big Brother inevitably decides that a shift in power must take place. Naeha also discusses Sarah’s win in great detail and justifies her friend’s victory by arguing that it was Sarah’s aggressive play that allowed her to excel (especially when she was left in the house with ‘tame’ players). This seemed to resonate with a jury that wanted to reward a houseguest who used aggressive play instead of relying on the subtle strategy.
