My Thoughts
Another iconic season. I like the rivals twist in theory, but as per my criticism of season 4’s twist, all of the houseguests should’ve had a rival in the house. I think anytime you have some houseguests that know someone in the house already versus others that don’t, you run the risk of the game not being fair. And although that wasn’t the case for two of the pairings, it definitely helped the Donatos in my opinion. But it’s Big Brother. I don’t expect fairness all the time. So to be honest, that’s not my problem with this twist. My only issue is that it was such wasted potential! Why have just six people at odds with each other, when you could have an entire house at each other’s throats? Again, like the exes, I’m sure it’s much more difficult to get people who dislike each other to agree to spend a summer together, compared to getting friends to live together like in season 6. But I can dream.
My “Fix”
To “fix” this twist I’m going to get a little diabolical. In addition to all of the HGs having rivals, if a houseguest wins HoH their rival will be granted immunity for the week. This way, the houseguests are forced to consider working with the person they hate the most. I know, I’m a genius! (Kidding! Have a sense of humor will ya?) Of course, they could still say “screw that” and opt to get their rival out anyway when neither of them are the HoH, but still. The option is there. Maybe some might throw the competition because they hate their rival *that* badly. Others may not, and realize the issues they have with their rival is not worth throwing the game over. Either way, more drama!
My analysis of season 7!
I think an important note as well is the imbalance of relationships of rivals in the house. There’s a petty childhood disagreement, a pair of adult exes, and then a literal father-daughter duo. Absolutely insane how unfair their relationship is relative to the other relationships, let alone the unaffiliated houseguests.
Also: no mention of America’s Player? Arguably the most controversial twist in the history of the show. Because of the way the Donatos were portrayed on the show (very sympathetically/highly visible), the public was incentivized to protect them through Eric, giving them an unbreakable trio even when it was disadvantageous for Eric to side with them against his other allies. Embarrassingly broken in my opinion.
I do like your modification for the record. More casting duos with 100% of contestants having a duo would be great :)
I know they already used Paris as a theme, but I’ve really wanted to see secret partners back with a twist. 8 secret pairs (“Lost Love” partners). Typical team rules, if you win HOH your partnership is safe. If you lose your partner, your partnership is publicly exposed and you get one week of safety. After 4 weeks, partners are no more, anyone who still has their partner has the opportunity to compete for a DPOV or other power.
Yes you’re absolutely right! The other two relationships were nothing compared to a father-daughter duo. Very unfair, but it made for great tv.
As for America’s Player, I’m going to address that for my season 10 post! A bit of a backtrack I know, but I was going to compare season 8’s iteration with season 10’s. Spoiler: I thought it was unfair in season 8.
I like your thinking, but I feel like it's already somewhat likely for rival pairs to end up working together (as we saw with the Donatos), so further incentivizing it could practically reverse the twist (which could still be interesting to be fair)
Honestly, even better. It’s like season 6, but instead of them being friends, they all hate each other. An anti-season 6 if you will