How a Big Brother Canada skeptic became a devotee.

CANADIAN VERSION OF A MAINSTREAM AMERICAN REALITY GAME SHOW BECAME ONE OF THE MOST DELIGHTFUL THINGS ON TELEVISION

The wail I loosed reflexively when Derek clinched the Power of Veto leaving Maddy as the runner-up (and Johnny’s plan to evict him or Kaela thwarted) was so loud it could be heard anywhere in the vicinity of several city blocks. This was at the end of April, with just two weeks to go before the conclusion of the sixth season of Big Brother Canada, and I was more invested in the outcome of Johnny’s conspiracy to dislodge this tenacious showmance from their seat of long-held power than I would have ever imagined seriously possible.

Fewer than two months prior I had never seen an episode of this or any other popular reality television series. I found the format vapid, obscene, juvenile, asinine and loathsome.

But on Thursday night I attended the Big Brother Canada finale. I love it more than almost anything else on TV.

The Canadian iteration of a mainstream American reality game show is not what you would call Prestige TV. And I was as reluctant to tune into Big Brother Canada, or BBCAN as it is affectionately referred to by devotees, as I might be to crack the spine on The Da Vinci Code or sit ringside at a bout of professional wrestling. Call it snobbery, but a man must have standards. As it happens my introduction to BBCAN was primarily a matter of social politesse. Two of my closest and most respected friends have been Big Brother fanatics for many years now and have binge-watched its back catalogue exhaustively: 26 seasons of the show in both its American and Canadian forms they have ingested, and they attest to its quality with a fervour otherwise reserved for the most eminent works of art.

This passion has long manifested as eloquent late-night disquisitions on the pleasures to be enjoyed in an average season of Big Brother as well as the occasional beseeching call to try it out — recommendations I humoured in the same spirit of patient amusement they no doubt adopt themselves when I hold forth on the merits of a betterthan-average superhero movie or classic Broadway musical. But when, earlier this year, they extended a formal invitation to join them at their home once a week to watch the latest season of Big Brother Canada I admit I agreed with little enthusiasm. I assumed it would, at best, be an entertainingly mindless distraction to whoop through with ironic disdain and, at worst, an opportunity to drink rum and cokes and delight in a social ritual among friends.

I was wrong. Granted it did not seem so at first.

Big Brother Canada’s sixth season materialized over the airwaves on the night of March 7 as though created expressly to accord with my preconceptions: one by one, the current batch of discriminatingly curated contestants were trotted out before the camera to mutter a few inane words about themselves and preen wildly for the audience, who were encouraged to identify each as a reductive archetype and begin forming impulsive affinities and premature allegiances. I disliked them all and could hardly imagine spending the next 10 weeks in their company. My friends asked that I study the group and select a favourite. This seemed to me as sensible a proposition as choosing a favourite historical despot or war criminal.

It took three weeks for me to change my tune — and so drastically that I found myself not merely enduring the vicissitudes of Big Brother drama but actively, vigorously relishing them. I developed the kind of intimate affection for several house guests that I harbour for my most beloved characters on fictional shows.

It started with Hamza. On the thirteenth day in the house Hamza became the Head of Household — an honour that empowers one contestant every week to determine two nominees to be evicted from the house. It tends on Big Brother to be the responsibility of each HOH to field the suggestions of the other contestants and to make a judicious decision based on who seems at the time least deserving to stay. Hamza took a different approach: chaos. He wanted to shake things up, and whenever anyone questioned his motives, he advised them cryptically to “trust the process.”

Hamza illustrated well for me how deceptively complex Big Brother gameplay can sometimes seem — and how complexly deceptive the house guests can sometimes be. Unlike other reality programs, which tend to be founded in a particular activity or vocation whose demands test the players in specific ways, Big Brother has no overarching theme or pragmatic dimension. Amazing Race rewards those contestants who navigate an arduous global relay the fastest; Hell’s Kitchen, with Gordon Ramsay, rewards its players on the merit of their skill on the stove. Big Brother has no gameplay. It is, consequently, nothing but gameplay: Big Brother rewards those contestants who play Big Brother better than their competitors, where “play” simply means “remain in the game.” This does not seem like a coherent test of ability until you watch the action unfold and understand the innumerable ways it can be done wrongly.

I was enamoured with Hamza’s strategy, which managed to shake up the house and unbalance already precarious alliances. And I was fascinated when, the very next week, its reverberations had a seismic effect: Veronica, a bartender from Ottawa, was summarily made the household’s public enemy No. 1 when it was revealed that she voted against the will of the others in Hamza’s eviction ceremony — and swift was the household’s indignant justice.

Such is the dynamic of the game. How you behave determines your standing; how others perceive you determines your capacity to stay. Relationships that seem impervious to outside influence can be poisoned with a few choice words. Players whose authority seems invulnerable can be ousted in an instant — as, much to my disappointment, Hamza was not long after his chaos reigned.

Which brings us finally back to Johnny and his delicate plan. Johnny was too good for this world. The selfdescribed “house husband” and academic from Victoria descended upon the house with a plan of action already in play: he would lurk on the periphery, careful not to arouse undue notice, before, as he declared to the camera in a moment of candour unforgettably, unveiling himself as the indomitable “butterfly of death.” Alas, his plan was foiled early. So he instead marshalled his efforts to disrupt the supremacy of a pair he deemed the house’s biggest combined threat: “Daela”, Derick and Kaela, two manipulative, strong-willed players involved with one another romantically since about the second week. Daela were dominating weekly competitions and seemed poised to trade off Head of Household week after week.

It was a heartening night when Johnny seized control of the house. He wasted no time making his feelings known: he immediately banished Kaela and Derick to the basement of the house, where they would subsist for the week to come on “slop” — basically Soylent — and be segregated from the others. But as the episodes continued and his plan began to unfold, Derick managed, in a feat of astonishing bravado, to secure his freedom with the Power of Veto, and at once, he protected himself from eviction and shifted the attention of the house to Alejandra (another major player who imagined herself protected for the time being). It dismantled Johnny’s scheme, and when it was announced that the night would end with a special triple eviction, tensions ran absurdly high as … well, perhaps you get the idea.

The precise machinations of such a game are impossible to convey in any detail to the uninvested without veering into the niche territory of the sports recap. Which is indeed how watching Big Brother Canada often feels. It has the same flavour of communal enthusiasm, of vicarious competition and rooting for a cherished team to win. Sitting on the couch among a group of friends, fists clenched as the time ticks down and the stakes raise higher and higher, you feel electrified, as if anything at all could suddenly happen. There’s nothing better than the Super Bowl or the NHL playoffs to compare to the experience of the heartracing season finale. It’s that ludicrous excitement, that sports-like delight, that makes Big Brother one of the most thrilling things on television.