The Big Brother 28 premiere introduced 14 new houseguests and three returning reality stars through a “Time Trip” theme centered on a Dining Table Time Machine. Enzo Palumbo appeared as a character to launch the twist, in which houseguests competed in three era-themed safety competitions, each winner earning safety and summoning a returning player.
Rome, Chuk, and Jason each claimed victory in their individual competitions, returning with Angela Murray from BB26, Rick Devens from Survivor, and a third veteran whose name was kept secret after Rachel Reilly was dramatically sent home before she could compete. The episode concluded without establishing an HOH winner, nominees, or an eviction, with the season’s inaugural power holder set to be unveiled in a subsequent episode.
The Return of the Greatest show Big Brother 28. Thursday’s 90-minute premiere gave us the Time Trip house, 14 fresh houseguests, three returning reality stars, and a closing stunt killin goff Rachel for good. No nominations, no eviction — just move-in, twists, and a cliffhanger. Here’s how it all went down.
Before anything else, the episode opened with a tribute card for Mickey Lee from BB27, who passed away late last year after heart complications. A quiet, well-handled moment before the chaos started.
Meet the new houseguests
Julie brought the women out first: Ashley (24, bartender, Chicago), Haley (29, telemedicine executive, Missouri), LaTrice (57, boutique salesperson, New Jersey), Lyric (25, attorney and hula dancer, Honolulu), Mallory (24, rocket scientist, New Jersey), Melody (24, corporate game show host, Arizona), and Taylor (27, school counselor, Florida).
Then the men: Barrett (27, jumbotron engineer, Austin), Chuk (27, supply chain analyst, Dallas), Drew (22, surgical dental assistant, California), Jason (35, drag performer known as Salina EsTitties from Drag Race, Los Angeles), Kamu (32, MMA fighter, Phoenix), Rome (28, pickleball coach, Florida), and Yash (24, financial analyst, New Jersey — the late addition who stepped in after Levi Banks removed himself from the cast days before the premiere).
Jason led the pack through the door, whoever walks in first never wins the game.
The twist: nobody in this house gets the first HOH
Once everyone settled in, Julie appeared on the living room screen and told them the first Head of Household of BB28 will not be any of the 14 people standing in the house. It belongs to someone who hasn’t walked in yet.
Enter Enzo Palumbo, playing the head scientist of “Meow Meow Industries,” to unveil the season’s centerpiece gadget: the Dining Table Time Machine. The houseguests scrambled to grab 12 hidden vials of “BB-Tonium” — Ashley and Barrett came up empty, locking them out of the night’s competitions entirely.
The 12 vial-holders were split into three groups of four. Each group got zapped to a different date in time, where the winner earned Week 1 safety and the right to pull a returning reality-TV star into the game.
Safety Comp #1 — July 9, 1988
Players: Rome, Kamu, Mallory, LaTrice
A steady-hands challenge. Each player had to keep a growing collection of retro ’80s props balanced across three narrow rails without letting anything hit the floor, all while an in-character store employee talked trash from behind the counter. Rome held it together and grabbed the first win of the season, earning safety and handing the “clerk” a letter inviting her to the house 38 years in the future.
The punchline: the clerk was a de-aged version of the very person that letter summoned. Angela Murray from BB26 walked through the door as the first returning vet. Barrett, a self-declared Angela fan, was thrilled. LaTrice said “Now we have somebody to send home first.”
Angela Murray entering the house. (FU)
Safety Comp #2 — July 7, 2018
Players: Chuk, Drew, Haley, Taylor
The time machine dropped this group on the last day of filming for Survivor: Edge of Extinction in Fiji. The comp was half obstacle course, half brain-teaser: leapfrog two boards across a water gap, Survivor-style, then solve a puzzle on the far side. Chuk demolished it — the whole thing was over almost as soon as it began.
Chuk’s win brought Survivor’s Rick Devens into the house as vet number two.
Rick Devens entering the house (Also known as Jared)
Safety Comp #3 — June 27, 2010
Players: Jason, Lyric, Melody, Yash
Destination: the Las Vegas strip, 2010. This one was a listening-and-memory challenge — pick out details from the staged conversations of the “partiers” around them, with wrong answers earning a drink dumped on their heads. Three of the four ended the comp soaked. Jason took the win, joking that he’d just tied his Drag Race challenge record.
They make it look like Rachel Reilly Is back. Again.
The HOH comp
All 17 suited up in prehistoric costumes and got “sent back” 175 million years for the first HOH comp of the summer, a vets-only showdown: Angela vs. Rick vs. Rachel.
Except Rachel never got to compete. A velociraptor herded her up the side of a smoking volcano set and pushed her in. Julie declared her “demise”
So who actually fills the third vet slot? Julie hopped in the time machine herself and punched in December 20, 2023, telling viewers the final cast member gets revealed on Friday’s episode of Big Brother: Unlocked. (Is it the night the Survivor 45 winner was crowned? Rumours have it that is who the last player is)
The episode ended right there: no HOH winner shown, no nominations, no eviction.
"KNOCK KNOCK" – Crazy Eyes Angela is in the #BB28 house @bigbspoilers pic.twitter.com/ZFsYyp1AJ7
— Dawg (@DawgsBigBrother) July 10, 2026
@Rick_Devens is in the #BB28 House! @bigbspoilers pic.twitter.com/6SUJbY11QR
— Dawg (@DawgsBigBrother) July 10, 2026
I love velociraptors.
I laughed so much when it went after Rachel!
i love volcanos
I thought the first episode was entertaining although I was definitely not happy to see Angle or Rachel back (I didn’t watch that other dude’s season of survivor so I have no opinion of him). I mean the cheesiness of the “time travel table” was a little much eh, but its Big Brother.
I meant Angela, got new glasses today, getting used to them LOL
oof. this new cast seems particularly stupid. i guess they felt devins already had the brains stereotype covered so they didn’t bother casting anyone with a brain among the newbies. first impressions are maybe taylor and latrice might not be total morons, but the rest of the newbies look like idiots.
I like Latrice for the most part but I was shocked that she literally told someone in the kitchen after Angela officially came into the house that Angela should be targeted. And this was AFTER she knew that Angela had a 1 in 3 chance of winning HOH!
That’s just plain stupid. For all she knows the person she told that to would tell potential HOH Angela Latrice was already targeting Angela and if so she very likely would end up on the block.
Nobody should have been that bold to throw targets out when they had no chance to win power. Maybe the three dudes with safety week 1 but even then it’s not a good look to be throwing out names.
yeah, not smart to say that out loud, but it’s dumber to not be thinking that which is what most new players end up doing.
Agreed. But Production likely will do everything in their power to save Angela, Dee, and Devens for as long as possible. I just hope Angela for sure goes ASAP.
Dee and Devens need to at least make the jury.
yeah, ensuring one of them is the first hoh gives them a sizeable advantage. first hoh is huge for building alliances and they go on to win at an above average frequency (i always think it insane when people throw the first hoh).
ultimately i think dee and devens have to work with each other for the early game or they’d be exposing their own vulnerability and making themselves a target (especially with blockbuster in play). both are smart enough to know that they need to turn on each other eventually so it will be a game of chicken who does so first, which has potential to be fun to watch. angela however is dead weight and a liability. i think you play nice with her early, but serious conversations need to be had about how easy is she to control and what she brings to the alliance. i think/hope there are better options than including her and barring production interference she’s gone by around week 3.
I am trying to figure out why they picked so many “athletic” people (admittedly the tall dude said he wasn’t athletic but I mean…..)
My 3 pre-season picks are La Trice, Barrett, and Jason. Hopefully they go further than last season’s picks. At least Jason is safe this week.
I would have made Rachel one of my picks if her time in BB28 wasn’t so short. Production is so cruel to us Rachel fans.
I’m expecting Angela to make Rome the next “Crazy Eyes”, but she’ll have to wait two weeks to get him out.
They need a millennial season with all houseguests old enough to have interesting backgrounds
Good point Beth!
And Gen Xers!
The first time Angela goes to the diary room to hear the voice of Grod, then comes out to stew and work herself up like she is trying to remember a script.
This will be followed, hours later, in a shock and awe campaign where she goes too far off script using language that is ejectable according to the bb code of conduct.
This will result in feeds being down for a day and a bit, and feeds further being fished every time anyone mentions what she said….. with no REAL action taken. She’ll still pout, which will also get us fished…. but she can use any one of the verboten words without real consequence to her, but HOURS of downed feeds for US.
Heck she can even tell the other houseguests she is not a regular houseguest, she has a separate contract…. on feeds. Still. Nada.
When that happens, remember this.
Not an I told you so in advance. A warning that this was her entire season in a nutshell for feed watchers.
STUCK IN MY CRAW:
premiere episode after Rachel starts her cameo.
Chenbot explains that only the Stunts will get to compete for HOH because the Stunts did not have the opportunity to compete for safety.
NOT TO BE A STICKLER
but Stretch Weird Al and Black hair bad attitude Barbie did not get to take part in safety comps either. Because Math is hard and because 14 is not divisible by three.
THEREFORE:
the entire premise of only stunts get to compete for HOH 1 is, in fact, a way of guaranteeing that it makes sense from a storyline perspective why the stunts were not just lined up as the first three noms.
Evidence of Pattern:
Rachel previously had safety week one because she didn’t get to compete. Cirie got safety week one because she didn’t get a chance to compete. Tampered down, but Paul got safety for 4 weeks because he didn’t get a chance to compete.
It’s bs. Reality: They are the stuntcast contracted players, of course they get a leg up.
So why the craw? Because Grod tried to pass off a bs excuse expecting we, the viewers have the brains of vegetables. It’s insulting.
By midway through week three we will be hearing ad nauseum how the stunts have had it so hard because they have been in danger since they entered. False flag. Stunts, for the most part usually get free rides in fancy cars for most of the season.
Given half of this cast is… challenged…. from the looks of the premiere, Grod needn’t have bothered. I mean a good number of them likely hear an echo in their own skulls because of the empty space.
I digress. A lot. Hopefully a stunt goes home early in the season. Doubtful given pattern of past seasons.
Thank you for reading my ‘why i hate mix cast and stuntcast seasons’ rant.
technically all 14 players did have a chance at safety, just two didn’t find cannisters and only got to play in the first round of the safety comp while the other 12 advanced to round two.
OR there should not have been a safety comp split into 3 groups when there are 14 houseguests. Additionally, there should not be a 2 tier system of newb and stunt. But here we are.
Suspicious mind that I am, just how many times DID they refer to the stunts as icons. Repetition of status differential DOES create a behavioral change in how the sheep look at the ‘icons’.
If i were tinfoiling hard….
so Grod is bringing in 3 stuntcasts. what will Grod want? Grod will want those stuntcasts safe for week one and Grod will not want the precedent set that these stuntcasts are going to hog air time and likely take up at least 2 seats in the final 6. That means preferential treatment mooks are taking the newbs seats. Grod does not want that thought to permeate. Grod wants a house of easily trained dumbfolk that will starfuq any celebutard she tosses at them.
Tinfoiling even HARDER.
So they opened the show with the all women all men intros. Parity. Then Grod adds 3 stunts….. which throws off parity. How do we fix something like that? If i were Grod…. I’d have a vested interest in making sure three men had safety so that a gender steamroll paradigm wasn’t established immediately. Is this necessary this season? With the number of starry eyed I wanna do softcore porn on feeds showmancer attitudes running through this cast? no. But Grod, when given a scale, will always tip that scale to Grod’s storyline benefit.
The last half was IF i were tinfoiling. I will curb the impulse as much as possible. However, now everyone knows the impulse still exists when i am NOT tinfoiling.
With after viewing, I’m still trying to figure what is going on with this season. So happy Rachael is gone. I’m still worried with Angela it is going to be a pissant paul season, with it being absolutely toxic.
When I saw Rachel back in the house, I wanted to puke. Sooooo happy she’s gone. Angela is a pain in the ass. Love Devens from Survivor. I’m glad we’re back!!
as much as I do not like Angela, for the most part, I do think BB did a good job with the season opener. It is much better than recent seasons. For the most past, I do like the new cast. With Rachael gone, there is less likely people to follow the “icons”. I do not think Angela is by any means an icon.
Have your gripes, but I want to see that maybe there is some hope this season and perhaps we can see people thinking and acting on their own. But I could be eating my words in a week or two.
Happy Summer watching 😉
If you do not watch unlocked or unblocked or whatev it is called:
Dee from Survivor entered the game.
BB Time Capsule fan votes. Don’t care. vote for hg to play a comp for an advantage or punishment. Vote open now, result episodically to be shown July 19.
HOH starts. teams hold ropes for stunts to build fire puzzle.
Have nots are the team that comes in last.
If you remember Angela as a have not… it is not a good thing for continuous feeds. It is a good thing for watching a nutjob crack… which leads to a sanityspasm resulting in fish.
FEEDS
HOH Dee
Noms (only 75 % sure) Mallory, Yash, Taylor.
Oh gross, Angela?! Her chaos was too much, like, she should have been pulled for mental health concerns. I was hoping never to see her again! Guess I’ll just have to wait til she’s gone to watch another episode ????? It’s like they’re not even trying with casting anymore! Let’s get some new characters in this house please!
Lyric is such a lil cutie !