How Much Does The ‘Big Brother’ Jury Actually See?

You know what my favorite part about this whole Big Brother game is? The fact that, in the end, the decision of who wins the entire thing is up to a jury of previously evicted houseguests. In other words, the only way a houseguest can win the ultimate prize of $500,000 is to be chosen as the most deserving — by a group of people that he or she beat out (and most likely betrayed) to get there. What this means for the game is that, even if someone is playing the game really well, that same game play might be just the thing to get them sent home if all of the jury members were victims of it: The jury members get to watch what is going down in the house up until the very end. But, it's worth wondering — how much do the jury members actually see from the house?

It turns out that it’s not much. Apparently, the reason for this is that in past seasons, there was some serious drama over the fact that jury members had seen diary room confessions and other pertinent information that totally tainted the way they saw the remaining players. Why is this a problem? Well, think of the Big Brother jury as you would a jury in a court of law: Just like those jurors, the Big Brother jury members are kept away from outside information that might reveal betrayals and secret alliances that they would have otherwise not known about. The jury members aren’t given any information that they wouldn’t otherwise have if they were still in the house. So, diary room confessions and secret meetings between alliance members? They don’t get any of that.

So what do they get to see?

Each week, when a new houseguest is evicted, they arrive at the jury house with a DVD of the previous week’s group events. All-house meetings, competitions, and ceremonies are included in the DVD, but anything that didn’t involve that entire house is not. That’s it. No clips of the Scamper Squad scampering. No shots of Listin canoodling. And no information on whether or not James and Meg have made out yet. It makes sense if you think about it: If they were still in the house they wouldn’t have that information, so why should they have it now that they’re out?

Too bad those jury members don’t have access to Bustle’s Big Brother podcast, The Diary Room. That might really shake up the vote:

Image: CBS (2)