‘Big Brother’ Season 22 Reportedly Scrapped Due to Coronavirus

As the guidelines for social distancing and self-isolation are set to continue through April, a number of TV series have already gone on indefinite hiatus. Now, it’s being reported that some are having their upcoming seasons scrapped outright. According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of those shows is Season 22 of the reality series Big Brother.

According to what numerous sources told the outlet, CBS scripted original series are typically relied upon to get through the slow summer months before the big fall premieres. This summer, however, the network likely will not have new seasons of Big Brother or Love Island, as neither had gone into production prior to the shutdown. On the upside, it does have a full season of The Amazing Race in the can and ready to air. The network also recently merged with Viacom, which does give them a larger pool of content to draw from, including Paramount Network.

The show’s German counterpart, which is currently filming Season 13, had gotten some backlash on social media in March after it had elected not to tell the houseguests about the escalating problem of coronavirus, not to mention the countless disruptions to day-to-day life. The show did eventually tell them about the situation on March 17 during an episode’s live broadcast.

Big Brother host Jochen Schropp, told the cast that “a disease called COVID-19 has spread across the world” and “reached Europe.” Some of the contestants quickly burst into tears, while others questioned how the pandemic would impact the world as well as the economy. The houseguests also received assorted video messages from their family and friends.

Initially, the decision to keep them in the dark stemmed from the rules that the contestants must not have any contact with the outside world. Given the severity of the current situation, the production company Endemol Shine released a statement explaining the reveal.

“All current productions were informed last week that the usual format rules regarding outside news do not apply in this instance, and it was requested that they inform their respective housemates of the evolving situation regarding COVID-19.,” the statement read. Big Brother Australia has also remained in production, albeit the houseguests were notified of the situation.

As of Tuesday, there have been 1,412,103 cases, of COVID-19 across the globe, with 81,103 deaths and 298,352 recoveries, according to Johns Hopkins University.