This week on Big Brother 22: All-Stars, the houseguests will play the traditional OTEV competition for the Power of Veto. For beginners, it should be noted that OTEV is “VETO” spelled backwards. This longstanding POV competition was introduced on Big Brother 7, which is otherwise known as the first All-Stars season of the series. Janelle Pierzina was the first-ever houseguest to win the OTEV comp. Every season, the character known as OTEV presents itself as a different deity-like figure. Over the years, OTEV has presented itself as a rain god, a shark, an alien, a penguin, a DJ, a skunk, and a pigeon, to name a few.
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Every year, the OTEV competition is one of the most highly-anticipated landmarks of a season for the Big Brother fans. Considering that this comp was introduced on the series’ first All-Stars season, it only made sense for it to be brought back this year for the second-ever All-Stars. Still, this comp typically involved water, which seems to be a complicated element for producers to deal with while the COVID-19 pandemic goes on. But the team behind Big Brother still found way to make it work. On Thursday night’s episode, host Julie Chen announced that the OTEV competition was going to be played this week.
The easiest way to explain the OTEV competition on Big Brother is that it works just like a game of musical chairs. Each round, the OTEV deity sings a song or utters a riddle. That statement contains clues related to which contestant from that season OTEV is referring to. When OTEV says “go,” the houseguests must go down a ramp and look for an item that contains the name of the person that OTEV was talking about. Once they find the item displaying the correct name for that round, they must go back up the ramp and take a place kneeling before the OTEV deity. Each round, there is one less place for a player to kneel – which means that the last houseguest to make their way up the ramp will be eliminated from the competition.
There are three essential components that the Big Brother players must face when playing the OTEV competition. First, they must figure out who OTEV is talking about based on his song or riddle. Second, they must be able to find the item that corresponds to the person that OTEV is referring to during that round. Third, they must be quick and strong enough to make it up on the ramp before their competitiors do. More often than not, it is fairly easy to figure out who OTEV is talking about… but there have been players in the past who tripped up on the clues.
It is always exciting for the fans to know that OTEV is coming right up. This is a big tradition for Big Brother, and a competition that all the houseguests look forward to watching or competing on.
Big Brother 22: All-Stars airs Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays at 8pm EST on CBS.
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