but first....

Only one week to go!  Can't believe it.  It seemed to be taking forever, but now the premiere of BB8 is almost here....

There are pictures of the house....I really like the new color scheme.  There's a pervasive Alice in Wonderland theme, which seems a bit much at times, but it's sort of cute.  I definitely like it better than the flame-y look from last year.  And probably even better than the bright colors of BB6.  They didn't show the HOH room, and who knows if it will change around this year like it did last year.  I like having it change, just to give some character to the room for whoever is in there that week.

And the Hamsters were unveiled on the Early Show this morning.  It would seem the twist is for real...sort of.  It's not exactly "high school bullies."  The exec. producer said something along the lines of some of the HGs would find out they were locked in the house with the last person they wanted to see.  And it would seem that one pair of "enemies" is a father and daughter.  It's interesting in the first place that BB would go for that...it's one thing to put ex-b/fs or g/fs in there, but estranged parents and kids?  Is it right to be exploiting that?  I don't know.  I guess we'll see how it goes.  It's also interesting b/c the daughter is under 21....which would supposedly make her ineligible.  I read the point somewhere that she must not have applied, but been solicited by producers since she doesn't meet the application criteria.  Which goes back to what I was saying about the twist....if you were approached to be on a show like this wouldn't you figure they were up to something?

I haven't seen any other confirmed pairings, but there are 2 girls, both 21, both students and both from Kansas....seems suspicious (maybe too obvious?).  It sounds like not everyone is part of a pair.  I would hope no more than 4 sets of "enemies."

Then there's the "America's Player" as a new "twist."  The viewers get to vote after each show on an action that AP has to attempt, and the hamster gets "financially rewarded" if s/he succeeds.  Let's hope this works out better than the coup d'etat.  I can just imagine....AP gets evicted week 1 or 2.  It really sounded from the press release that it was a particular person, not changing.  But maybe if the player gets voted out, the next America's vote is for who of the remaining HGs is the new AP?  That could work.

It's hard to get excited about the players until we see them in action.  But at least now we have something to think about for the next week....who might be "enemies"....who do we think we'll like....who do we think we'll hate?

And how much are we going to laugh at ourselves in 3 months, realizing how wrong we were?

6 days 23 hours 39 minutes until BB8!