The Big Brother 26 season already had some controversy with its first episode.
Eagle-eyed viewers at home weren’t convinced that the results were correct during the Day 1 challenge between the houseguests.
The season premiere featured the first eight BB26 houseguests voting on whether or not to add a 17th player.
That 17th player was an Artificial Intelligence that sought to punish people who didn’t support it.
But the four people who supported the AI got to compete to have their Big Brother game “upgraded” this summer.
To win the upgrade in the challenge, a houseguest had to spin around in a chair while watching a color sequence displayed in the room. They then had to duplicate that sequence on buttons within the room.
The person who completed the challenge the quickest would receive the upgrade.
Controversy in the first Big Brother challenge
During the challenge, a clock counted down from the 30-second time limit the houseguests had. Nobody got it 100 percent correct, so it came down to which person got the fourth button pushed first.
Host Julie Chen Moonves stated that Makensy Manbeck won the challenge. The timer on the episode had many Big Brother fans convinced that Joseph Rodriguez had claimed the victory.
Many fans are still debating those results on social media, but one die-hard fan and podcaster took the time to re-watch the episode and use his timer.
“There’s been some controversy over the timer between Joseph & Makensy. Their on-screen timer shows Joseph going faster, but manually timing it shows Makensy edging him out. #BB26,” Taran captioned his post.
In the video below, we can see that Makensy did indeed win the challenge, but it was an extremely close finish. It looks like the post-production team had an imprecise timer for the episode.
More early news from the Big Brother 26 season
Here are the BB26 cast bios for anyone who needs a cheat sheet. The group includes a former undercover cop, a nurse recruiter, and a real estate agent.
An early fan poll revealed the most-disliked BB26 cast member. Will that remain the case as the episodes begin arriving?
The rest of the houseguests are introduced during the July 18 episode, which was also pre-taped following an early move-in date.
Previous seasons of Big Brother are streaming on Paramount+. The streaming service and Pluto TV will provide live feed coverage this summer.
A massive change to the Big Brother Live Feeds was revealed. It could take away some of the fun fans have enjoyed during past years.
Big Brother 26 airs on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9/8c on CBS.
All episodes of Big Brother are now streaming on Paramount+. Try it FREE!
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