If it wasn’t for the factor that there is a poker player involved in the proceedings, the number of people in the poker community watching the CBS reality show Big Brother would probably be much smaller than its current levels. With poker professional Vanessa Rousso in the final five players in the competition, rumors are now beginning to leak out that “the fix is in” from producers of the popular reality program and CBS executives to have Rousso win this year’s competition.
According to several popular Big Brother fan sites and blogs (the true fans of a television series, while sometimes overly analytical and pessimistic about their favorite series, are sometimes on track with show rumors), unnamed personnel that work on the show have stated that producers have had the show set up for Rousso to win pretty much since the start of this year’s competition. These sources state that producers have constantly fed insider information to Rousso to keep her abreast of her standing among the competitors. By using this information, Rousso would allegedly know what her fellow houseguests were feeling about her, know when to stroke egos or push hard against her fellow competitors or know when to keep her head low and let others be taken out.
Much of this commotion has come about since many of the “fan favorites” have already hit the bricks (or, as we would say in the poker industry, have “hit the rail”). The “fanatics” of the show, cheering for such players as Meg or James (who were both eliminated a week ago during the latest “double elimination night”), have loudly voiced their displeasure with the final six players – the wrestler Austin, the twins Liz and Julia, the dentist John, the musician Steve and Rousso – with many canceling their subscriptions to the all-access feed (24/7 access to the cameras in the Big Brother compound) that CBS provides for the program.
Another point that the naysayers make when referencing the potential for the game to be skewed towards Rousso point out the only time when she was on the eviction block during the run of the competition. Sitting with fellow houseguest Shelli on the eviction seat, Rousso was thought to have been a target at that time but several houseguests (including Meg and James, who had targeted Rousso) “mysteriously” switched their votes to evict Shelli from the game instead of Rousso. The “fans” of the show believe that the producers swayed the voting towards Shelli to keep Rousso alive in the competition.
Why would the producers care about who wins a reality competition? Rousso is allegedly supposed to be starring in another CBS show called Poker Face and winning the Big Brother competition would be a strong lead-in for promoting the upcoming television show. There is one problem with this, however; according to the IMDB.com, there is no program on tap for broadcast on the network and Rousso’s IMDB.com profile does not list any television programs that she is a part of after the conclusion of Big Brother.
IMDB does have Rousso taking part in a new documentary called Post Oak Bluff: The Politics of Poker, which is currently in “post-production” according to IMDB and is supposed to be released before the end of the year. There is no mention, however, of any program on CBS or any other network, broadcast or cable, that would serve as a vehicle for Rousso or that would need the “bump” of winning Big Brother to promote it.
It may simply be the whining of a group of fanatics complaining about what they say is “one of the worst seasons” of the Big Brother competition. It may simply be the way for those same fans to explain why Rousso, who has shown some outstanding manipulation skills through her run on the show, hasn’t been targeted more by her fellow houseguests. Bur what if there is some truth to the rumors that Big Brother producers and CBS executives have skewed the game to Vanessa Rousso?