Murtz On The Scene: Exclusive Interview & Big Brother 15 Preview With Rachel Reilly

Features, Interviews, Previews, Top Story

Big Brother 15 premieres tonight on Global in Canada and CBS in the U.S. and after one of the best overall seasons of the show last summer which saw Ian Terry win the $500,000 prize over Dan Gheesling, there has been a lot of speculation as to how the show would attempt to top itself.

The answer?

More twists.

As is usually the case in reality television, adding twists seems to be the primary way in which producers attempt to fix things (whether necessary or not) and in this regard, Big Brother 15 will be completely different from any previous version of the series.

Already announced, this year’s changes include three nominees being placed on the block each week and the addition of a Most Valuable Player (MVP) being chosen by the voting public. The MVP is designed to eliminate floaters, although, I believe this will only encourage floating to an even higher degree as the HOH could conceivably nominate four people (assuming the veto is used and that the MVP isn’t responsible for one nomination). Why would you ever want to win?!

In addition to the twists, the other big news about tonight’s season premiere is that it features Elissa Slater on the cast. If you don’t know who Elissa Slater is, you probably haven’t been following news about the series online as she is the sister of one of the fiercest Big Brother players of all time and the show’s 13th winner, Rachel Reilly.

Until the show debuts, it is unclear if Elissa will play a similar game to her sister, but she clearly is heading in with a major advantage having one of the best coaches around at her disposal.

Rachel Reilly was in Toronto last week to promote tonight’s season premiere. Because of either brilliant or incredibly lucky scheduling, I was the absolute first to break the news of the new cast to her and exclusively get her immediate thoughts and first impressions of the newest members to the Big Brother family.

Check it out!

Big Brother 15 premieres tonight on Global and CBS at 8 p.m.

Murtz Jaffer is the world's foremost reality television expert and was the host of Reality Obsessed which aired on the TVTropolis and Global Reality Channels in Canada. He has professional writing experience at the Toronto Sun, National Post, TV Guide Canada, TOROMagazine.com and was a former producer at Entertainment Tonight Canada. He was also the editor at Weekendtrips.com.