On The Air

Big Brother is coming back to CBS for the 8th season this summer, and the exact date has finally been announced. Following their tradition of airing the first episode as close to Independence Day as possible, the first episode will air Thursday, July 5 at 8:00pm Pacific/Eastern. And after that it will pick up the three-days-a-week schedule that we’ve all come to know and love, with airings Thursday at 8, Sundays at 8, and Tuesdays at 9.

This schedule means that Pirate Master will be booted out of the prime Thursday at 8 slot to make way for Big Brother’s eviction night. It will air July 5th at 9 for one time only, following the Big Brother premiere. But CSI’s ratings are just too high for Pirate Master to stay in that time slot, so the following week the merry crew of the Picton Castle will instead be finding a new berth Tuesdays at 10, right after the weekly Big Brother veto episode.

And if three nights a week isn’t enough to satisfy your Big Brother appetite, tune in to the “Showtime Too” network (which I never heard of either) every night at 9pm Pacific / midnight Eastern for three straight hours of live feeds, broadcast live from the house with no editing. Of course if you’re that much of a Big Brother addict, you’ll be subscribed to the live feeds anyway, but this way the feeds will be piped straight into your TV and you won’t have to pull out your hair screwing around with Real Player. Plus you’ll get them in full broadcast quality.

There are only supposed to be 12 houseguests this time, but I remember them telling us that before. Maybe this year the big twist will be that there really are only 12! And, behind the scenes, producer Arnold Shapiro has stepped away from the show, leaving partner Alison Groder in charge of the whole thing. No idea yet if this means anything creatively for the show, like for example the “twists” getting less lame. I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

And, of course, the cast won’t be announced until all the people have actually moved inside the house, which they normally do 5-7 days before the first episode airs. So look at the CBS website at the end of the month to see the latest group of idiots we’re going to have to put up with.