Fans of Survivor know that Hidden Immunity Idols add an extra layer to the already phenomenal game, making the beloved competition series one of the greatest in CBS history.
Within Survivor, Hidden Immunity Idols are scattered throughout the jungle, and if found, they give the castaways the ability to be safe from elimination at tribal council, despite losing the immunity challenge earlier that day — if someone is able to keep their Hidden Immunity Idol under wraps, they have the power to pull off the ultimate blindside!
While it is not as vast as the shores of Fiji, the Big Brother mansion (or should we say Sound Stage 18 at CBS Studios in Los Angeles?) has plenty of places to stash a Hidden Immunity Idol, but in 25 seasons, has that ever happened?
Given that Survivor and Big Brother have a great deal of similarities, keep scrolling to find out if Hidden Immunity Idols have ever been a part of the latter.
Has the Big Brother house used Hidden Immunity Idol-style advantages?
To kick off the conversation, @hazel1312 shared via Reddit the question we have all been wondering: “New to BB, I’ve watched every season since 22 live, but I haven’t gone backwards yet. As a longtime Survivor fan though, I’m just curious if BB has ever had things hidden in the house to be discovered by players at a later date. Something that proves advantageous to their game? Sort of following the Hidden Immunity Idols of Survivor.”
Unfortunately, no Hidden Immunity Idols have ever been dispersed within the Big Brother house, however, several Big Brother superfans explained other advantages that have been hidden in the past.
“They once hid a pass to a secret room in BB6, and in BB18 they had a house-wide scavenger hunt for the Round Trip ticket,” @manmanchuck44 wrote, while other Reddit users shared similar responses.
“They’ve had Pandora’s Box and the secret room with the one-way tickets and one round-trip ticket to get an evicted houseguest back in on eviction night. I’m sure I’m leaving something out but they’ve definitely had things before,” @Rufio_Rufio7 added.
While these advantages sound extremely intriguing, they were actually “an advantage and disadvantage” for the houseguests.
@Rufio_Rufio7 continued, “Pandora’s Box was both an advantage and disadvantage. The secret room that they had to figure out the code to contained tickets, and on eviction night, the evicted houseguest would open their ticket in front of the audience, with Julie, to see if it was Round Trip or One Way. If it was Round Trip, they got to go back in the house.”
On top of the Pandora’s Box twist, Big Brother 19 featured some unique advantages as well.
“The closest thing I can think of is in 19 when they did a season of temptations. There was a tree in front of the front door like in between the kitchen and living room with apples with hidden advantages/disadvantages that you were able to pluck at ur discretion. They were temptations because you didn’t know if you got a good or bad apple,” @ervkv wrote.
“It kinda flopped though, because the houseguests stayed away from the apples mostly. Only one apple was plucked to my knowledge by Mark [Jansen] who wasn’t in the power alliance. He had his back up against the wall, so he plucked one and got safety for someone else, not himself. He ended up choosing Paul [Abrahamian] as a show of good faith to try and avoid getting targeted/evicted but it didn’t work. I was always curious what else they had hidden away in the rest of the apples.”
While these are just a few of the advantages houseguests have gotten on Big Brother, there has never been one quite like the coveted Hidden Immunity Idol on Survivor, despite how badly fans of the hit competition show have been yearning for it.
With four-time Survivor player Cirie Fields in the house for Big Brother 25, several Big Brother superfans thought that this would be the season that Hidden Immunity Idols were finally introduced.
“Honestly, I thought this was the season they’d do that with a Survivor veteran in, Cirie, and Cory [Wurtenberger], someone who has had a family member compete on Survivor. I really thought after Matt [Klotz] won and used his power, this would be the season where houseguests would regularly discover ‘powers’ throughout the game and they’d trickle back in as they’re used, but no,” @EnwardGamerz dished.
The Reddit user further pointed out how in Survivor Tribal Councils would “go absolutely” crazy as they possessed ‘powers,’ something that will not do well when a live eviction on BB takes place as people would start “using ‘powers’ and then people start countering other ‘powers’ in order to make a huge game move. We seriously could not agree more — Hidden Immunity Idols would make live evictions absolutely wild!
But that does little to dampen expectations of seeing a similar setup in Big Brother as well. Fortunately, with host Julie Chen Moonves constantly telling viewers and houseguests alike to “expect the unexpected,” you never know if we will see a Hidden Immunity Idol on Big Brother in the future…
With Survivor 45 and The Amazing Race 32 premiering last week, new episodes of Big Brother will now air on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays on CBS and/or Paramount Plus — tune in to see what twists and turns are right around the corner!
Published: Oct 1, 2023 01:10 pm