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ShowsBig BrotherSeason 11
Aired summer 2009 · The cliques twist

Cliques Summer

The first summer the producers reached for a high-school sorting hat. Thirteen houseguests walk into the Studio City compound and get split on Day One into four cliques — athletes, brains, off-beats, populars — that govern the early HoH and nomination math. The twist front-loads the alliance lines before the cast has had a night to read the room. Worth the watch for the moment Big Brother starts treating its conceits as social frames rather than mechanics.

Filmed
Studio City, California
Premiered
Jul 9, 2009
Episodes
30
Format
13 houseguests · four high-school cliques
athletes, brains, off-beats, populars — sorted on Day One
Host
Julie Chen
On this page4 sections
  1. 01The take
  2. 02Where it sits in the canon
  3. 03Adjacent in the canon
  4. 04Also appears in
01The take

Uneven cast, sharp idea.

02Where it sits in the canon

The #14 slot.

Slot #14 of 27 in the Big Brother Editor's Canon. Fourteenth, another case of an originator ranking ahead of a season that borrows its idea — Festie Besties at #15 runs a more elaborate version of the same day-one sorting logic this season introduces first. Cliques Summer sits behind the Team Captains because its cast doesn't sustain the concept as evenly across the run, but it stays ahead of Festie Besties because inventing the sorting-hat grammar the modern era keeps reaching for still counts as a real canon contribution, even on an uneven bench. The two seasons on either side of this slot make the same point from opposite directions: originality and execution both matter, and neither fully substitutes for the other.

No spoilers. Every page is reviewed before it goes live.
04Also appears in

Cross-references.

Big Brother: every summer gets its own twistlist · 25 entriesWhere the warmth ran outlist · 14 entriesBig Brother — Editor's CanonEditor's Canon · #14