Andy DehnartCBS has renewed Big Brother for an eleventh season, but it has abandoned its poorly conceived spring season, and will air the next season in the summer.
In its announcement of the renewal, the network brags that this summer’s edition “averaged nearly 7 million viewers this summer … and proved strong counter programming opposite the summer Olympics.”
Casting for the next season has already started; the application [PDF] is on CBS’ web site. And the eligibility requirements [PDF] have an interesting statement about who they’re looking for:
“The Producers are looking for a dynamic group of individuals who are articulate, interesting and exhibit enthusiasm for the project as well as a willingness to share their most private thoughts in an open forum of strangers. This group of individuals, while meeting the technical requirements of the program, must also have sufficient physical, psychological, and mental capacity to endure approximately 100 days in a monitored house under extraordinary conditions.
I’d mock that relentlessly except this summer season actually was classier than normal, even with the public sex, Ollie’s homophobic outbursts, and Jessie’s anti-Semitism. If they cast a group of crazy but not thoroughly horrifying people who are all strangers, and stay away from stupid twists, we may be seeing a different sort of its show for its second TV season decade.