Big Brother 17 aired in the summer of 2015 and was won by Steve, who beat Liz in the final two by a jury vote of 6–3. It was the season of the Twin Twist, the last full run of the Battle of the Block, and an alliance that changed its name so often most viewers never realised it was the same group all along.
- Winner: Steve, 6–3 over Liz.
- Year: 2015.
- Cast: 14 new houseguests, plus two returning reality players and one twin.
- Twists: the Twin Twist, BB Takeover and the Battle of the Block.
- Defining alliance: Sixth Sense, which became Freaks and Geeks, which became the Scamper Squad.
- The deal that decided it: Steve and Vanessa’s two-person final two, made in the first few weeks and never broken.
- Zingbot: upgraded to Zingbot 9000 for the first time this season.
Who won Big Brother 17?
Steve won Big Brother 17, taking the final vote 6–3 against Liz.
The reason he was sitting there at all traces back to a deal nobody outside it knew existed. Steve and Vanessa had been working together since the first few weeks of the season under a two-person final two pact they called SOS, or Students of Sound. It survived every alliance either of them belonged to, and it was still holding at the end.
Vanessa spent the season as the most visible strategist in the house, ran several alliances at once, and made the final three. The quiet arrangement she had made in week two is why Steve, not Vanessa, won the season.
What was the Twin Twist in Big Brother 17?
Big Brother 17 brought back the Twin Twist: Liz and Julia entered as a single houseguest, swapping in and out of the game and pretending to be one person.
The rule was survival. If the twins could last long enough without being caught out, both would enter the house as individual players. They did, and Julia became a houseguest in her own right.
The twist also shaped the season’s power structure. Vanessa worked out what was happening early, and rather than exposing it she brought that knowledge into an alliance — which is how the Sixth Sense formed and how she ended up at the centre of the season.
What was BB Takeover?
BB Takeover was Big Brother 17’s weekly twist format: each week the game was interrupted by a change announced from outside the house, often by a guest.
The first one brought two players in. Jackie and Jeff, who had competed together on The Amazing Race, entered the house in the opening week — the only houseguests that season arriving with an established relationship from another show.
How did the Battle of the Block work in Big Brother 17?
The Battle of the Block gave Big Brother 17 two Heads of Household every week, each nominating two houseguests. The four nominees then competed, and the winning pair came off the block — taking the Head of Household who nominated them down with them.
One Head of Household survived each week. The other was dethroned and became eligible for eviction along with everybody else.
By Big Brother 17 the house had worked out how to game it. Throwing the Battle of the Block deliberately — to dethrone a rival Head of Household, or to control which nominations stood — had become normal rather than exceptional, and feed watchers came to expect it every week.
What were the Big Brother 17 alliances?
Big Brother 17 produced more named alliances than any season before it, and most of them were the same people under a different name.
One core group ran the house and kept rebranding as the target changed. It started as the Sleeper Cell, became the Sixth Sense, then Freaks and Geeks, and finally the Scamper Squad. Membership shifted each time. The centre of it did not.
Around it, a rotating cast of smaller alliances formed to stop it and failed one after another — the High Rollers, the After Dark Crew, the Goblins, and Dark Moon, which lasted about a week.
The full breakdown of all of them, with membership and how each one collapsed, is on the Big Brother 17 alliances page.
What was Dark Moon?
Dark Moon was the biggest alliance of Big Brother 17 and the shortest-lived. Eight houseguests formed it in Week 5, with one stated purpose: evict Austin.
It came apart inside the same week. Vanessa, who was in it, nominated Jason instead of the agreed target — betraying several members at once and ending the only serious attempt anyone made to organise against the house’s core group.
The name came from a phrase Audrey had used for shady behaviour, which is an odd tribute given she had already been evicted by the time it was formed.
When did Zingbot 9000 debut?
Zingbot arrived in the Big Brother 17 house on 26 August 2015 and announced that he had been upgraded from Zingbot 3000 to Zingbot 9000. He also declared himself newly single, which left the Bride of Zingbot from Big Brother 13 unaccounted for.
The visit came with a morph veto set at a bachelor pad. The zings went to Liz, Austin, Julia, James, Vanessa, Meg, Steve and John.
The full run of them is on the Zingbot page.