As a huge fan of BBUS I am really confused at what the production team of the last two series are playing at. Why have they mixed newbies and vets in the last two series? It has meant that we have had no new legendary houseguests appear in the last two years with BB14 seeming to follow suit as BB13. Would it not have been better to have had BB13 as all newbies and then had BB14 as All stars? Saving Brendon and Rachel, Jeff and Jordan, Danielle and Evel Dick, Dan and Britney and with other past houseguests from seasons 8-13 for this season would have made far more sense right?

No one else think this?

I've got mixed feelings really. On the one hand, it's really frustrating in these mixed seasons, because the returning housemates eat up all the airtime and it's far to easy for the weaker new players to gravitate towards them, resulting in veteran dominance. On the other hand though, last season was absolutely saved by Daniele and Rachel. The newcomers last year were all pretty uninspiring, and apart from Shelly did nothing worth serious discussion all Summer.

I don't think that last Summer, they planned for BB14 to contain Vets, but I do wonder if they chickened out of having an all newbie season after the disaster that was BB12. With the power of hindsight, I think I'd have preferred an All newbie BB13 and then a BB14 cast, but this season is already starting to look void of particularly exciting newcomers so..

I don't know if they deliberately cast weak newbies with strong returning HG's so that the returned HG's will naturally dominate... In BB13, BB14, and Survivor: Fans vs Favourites the newbies have always been weak.

I don't think they will go back to all-newbies series for a while since this is the formula that seems to work. Sooner or later they will run out of viable returning players though!

I think the quality of newbie gameplayers has gone down over the last two years, but I also think they appear weaker than they usually would in an all-newbie cast as the returnees have already gained experience of the game which puts them steps ahead.

Vets usually look at the newbies and target the ones who have potential to be trouble down the road. The regulator alliance in BB13 had newbies that were willing to play but they didn't win, so they were all knocked out by the vets.

I'm not a big fan of vets returning against newbies and I hated last year (I hate Jejo/Brenchel) but since i like Dan/Britney this year, oh wells.

I don't mind mixing newbies and veterans in a way, but starting this season with the veterans not eligible for the game and then changing it was strange. It's better if there is an equal number of both like last year.

Yeah all good points. I do think the quality of houseguests has decreased over the few years but then as pointed out last year threats were voted out first by the vets. I just dont like the mix, last year was interesting but this year Im not sure it will be as intersting. I would just much prefer an All Star cast were every player is experienced.

For some reason all of CBS's reality shows seem to be relying heavily on returning players now because it looks like they're all now scared the format cannot be good enough on its own. BB has gone down this route after the poor reception to BB12 which IMO is a bit of an overreaction.

But Survivor has also done it after Nicaragua, even though the general audience cr*pping on it was totally due to Jeff Probst's bias against it. Even though it was a wonderful season. They're even doing it for TAR now what with them bringing in Survivor and BB stars every season. I for one am getting fed up of it because the mixed seasons generally turn out to be quite poor for one reason or another.