The Glass House - Season Premiere - Full Video - Recap and Review

After a request by CBS for a temporary restraining order was denied by a judge last week, The Glass House premiered on ABC on Monday. It features 14 players living in a house made mostly out of glass, where they compete in challenges, get voted off and frolic in a hot tub. So yeah, it's basically Big Brother with a bigger budget. LOL.

There are some "tweaks" however that make it essentially a different game from the Big Brother that we are used to in America. The most obvious is the interaction with the viewers. Viewers are able to decide what the players will do in real time via online votes and questions (the live stream is up every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 3-4 PM ET and on Monday 11 PM - 3 AM ET). Viewers also decide who leaves. Aside from the "glass house," there is also a huge backyard where the challenges are played (at least twice the size as Big Brother's).

The general "feel" however is indeed Big Brother (or any reality show for that matter with cameras everywhere) but with different mechanics. I am happy that this show is on the air if only to see a different approach with this reality "genre". I just checked out the live feed after the show, and it's very interesting. I think this is going to be a good time waster for the summer.

Episode 1 Recap

Off the bat, Alex is a huge douchebag and a-hole. This entire episode was all about his awfulness.

The players enter the house and the viewers assign them their rooms.

The Enemies Room went to Holly (the youngest) and Robin (the oldest).

The Friends Room went to Erica and Andrea.

The viewers then vote for different stuff for them to do: pool party, sushi platter, etc.

First Week Challenge

The viewers decide to divide the players by "East" and "West".

Each team gets to pick a leader. The leader of the losing team and a member of the losing team picked by the house go into "limbo" for the week. The viewers then decide who to keep from the two.

For the West, Jacob volunteers as leader (because he admitted that he was an idiot).

For the East, Jeffrey volunteers as leader (because he didn't want anymore conflict in his group when they were meeting about it -- it was a good move because they all came together after that).

The challenge was a gigantic puzzle to match a player with something they had done in the past.

The West was a bit a of a disaster. Since Jacob could not lead, Alex tried to lead, but no one was listening to him.

The East had an easier time with the challenge. Thanks to Andrea, a proud member of Mensa, they were able to solve the puzzle really quickly. The team listened to Jeffrey and Andrea without any arguments.

The winner of the challenge was the East team.

Limbo

Sensing that he might be voted into limbo, Alex goes into overdrive with his douchiness. Kevin, the hot police sergeant, says he is overplaying the game. Yes -- overplaying and overcompensating, he's a mess. He basically made everyone hate him.

There's a session where during the live feed, a player can ask a question to the viewers. The answers are then revealed to everyone in the house (so only the player knows what's up). This is a great twist in developing strategy!

Alex asked if he should be a villain, and the viewers said "yes." Sigh.

Apollo, the poet, has an interesting strategy for choosing who to vote: randomly. After letting people pick cards, he picks Ashley to vote off after she drew the four of spades. Weird.

In the end, Alex is voted into limbo by an overwhelming vote.

Alex and Jacob are in limbo.

Ideally, the viewers are given 24 hours to vote off someone, and the other player returns to the game. However, shortly after he went to limbo... Jacob left the game!

Viewers still have a choice to either vote off Alex or keep him.

You can vote at http://abc.com/glasshouse

Find out tomorrow in the live feed if Alex stayed or not. (I will keep you posted!)

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Verdict: I will definitely continue to watch this show. I have a couple of favorites already that I can work with for the next 9 weeks.

This is like Big Brother and If I Can Dream rolled into one with other plusses.