Big Brother Northwestern 7

## Cast/Memory Wall

**Big Brother Northwestern 7**, also known as **Big Brother Northwestern: Around The World**, is the seventh season of Big Brother Northwestern. Taking place on September 18, 2023, this season was themed around World Travel, with the challenges and twists being inspired by different countries and mode of international travel. This is also the first season to feature houseguests from the Class of 2026.

Despite beginning with several overlapping alliances and the Round Trip Ticket being revealed early on, the season soon transformed into a battle of age: the Underclassmen, consisting of the houseguests from the Class of 2026, versus the Upperclassmen, the houseguests from the Classes of 2025 and 2024. With the two factions trading Nominator power nearly every round, the game was full of power shifts until only one underclassmen, Aiden Kaliner, remained against three upperclassmen: Ferd Moscat, Jeff Snedegar, and Mario Montes. Despite this, Aiden was able to win the Final Nominator Challenge and reach the Final 3, where he collected the Jury Votes of his fellow underclassmen for a 5-4-0 victory against Jeff and Ferd.

## Production

Big Brother Northwestern follows the format of the rebooted Big Brother Australia series (seasons 12-14), thereby featuring the following production changes from the American version of Big Brother

* **Nominator Challenges:** At the start of each round, the housemates compete in a "Nominator Challenge". The winner of the competition has the sole power over the nominations. Immediately after the challenge, the winning housemate will be called to the Diary Room by Big Brother to name three nominees, and provide full reasons for their nominations. If the competition is run in pairs, then the winning pair must decide together on nominations.
* **Eviction Vote:** On eviction night, all housemates must vote to evict one of the nominees, with the exception of the nominating housemate (who will only cast a tie-breaker vote, if required), nor do the nominated housemates vote when there are only two nominees (on account of their votes canceling the other's out). The eviction vote is by secret ballot, with housemates casting their votes orally in the Diary Room to Big Brother, and must provide a reason for their vote. The nominee with the most votes is evicted from the house.
* **Final 3:** The finale of the seasons consists of the final 3 houseguests in the game.
* **Jury Vote:** Due to Big Brother Northwestern not having a viewing audience, the winner of the season was determined through a Jury Vote as opposed to a Public Vote.

## Twists

* **Round Trip Ticket:** Before the first challenge, the houseguests each had to claim one of 12 envelopes. One envelope contained a “Round Trip Ticket,” permitting the houseguest who unknowingly claimed it to immediately re-enter the game upon their eviction, while the other envelopes all contained a “One Way Ticket.” Until the Final 6, Drew would open the envelope of the evicted houseguest to reveal their fate.
* **Choose Your Destination:** For the first Nominator Challenge of the season, the houseguests were instructed to “choose their destination” and split themselves into three boarding groups, under the impressions that they were selecting teams for the challenge. Each boarding group competed in their own challenge, with the winner earning safety for the first eviction of the season. The three winners from each boarding group would then compete in a final challenge, with the winner becoming the first Nominator of the season.
* **First Class Upgrade:** During Round 4, the houseguests competed in a special Advantage Challenge. The winner would secretly earn the First Class Upgrade power, which would allow them to save one of the 3 nominated houseguests following the nomination announcement, forcing the Nominator to immediately name a replacement nominee.
* **Jet-Lagged Punishment:** The two losers of the Round 4 Advantage Challenge would publicly receive the Jet Lag punishment. The Jet Lag punishment blocks one houseguest from competing in the Nominator Challenge and blocks the other from voting at the Round 4 eviction. The two losers must decide between themselves who gets what punishment.
* **Second Chance Challenges**: During Round 7 and 8, it was revealed that the three nominated houseguests would compete in a second challenge, where the winner would save themselves from eviction.

## Houseguests

  **Winner**

 **Runner-Up**

 **Third Place**

 **Jury: *Jeff***

 **Jury: *Aiden***

 **Jury: *Aiden***

 **Jury: *Jeff***

 **Jury: *Aiden***

 **Jury: *Jeff***

 **Jury: *Aiden***

 **Jury: *Aiden***

 **Jury: *Jeff***

## Alliances

*Arranged by duration/effectiveness/power:*

* **The Rowing Machines** - *Jeff, Mario*
* **Um Fart** - *Ferd, Mario*
* **JefFerdson** - *Ferd, Jeff*
* **✨Booked✨**- *Aiden, Emily, Kate*
* **Browntown, USA** - *Daniel, Ferd*
* **Team Dawn** - *Daniel, Jeff*
* **Emily + Mary Kate** - *Emily, Mary Kate*
* **Signficiant Others** - *Emily, Mario*
* **Latinos Unite** - *Daniel, Mario*
* **Henry's Skanks** - *Helena, Ferd, Mario*
* **MT Choreo** - *Daniel, Emily, Mary Kate*
* **Awesome Alliance** - *Emily, Kate, Ryan*
* **1838** - *Isabelle, Phoebe*
* **Emily (She/Her)** - *Emily, Isabelle*

*Upperclassmen vs Underclassmen Allegiances:*

* **Upperclassmen** - *Daniel, Ferd, Jeff, Mario [and Helena]*
* **Underclassmen** - *Aiden, Emily, Kate, Mary Kate*

## Game Summary

### Round 1

#### Round 1

 **Team 1 Winner**

 **Team 2 Winner**

 **Team 3 Winner**

After entering the house, the houseguests chose envelopes, and Phoebe anonymously claims the Round Trip Ticket. Under the guise they were competing together, the houseguests formed teams: Team 1 was Mary Kate, Kate, Emily and Mario, Team 2 was Phoebe, Ferd, Ryan, Aiden, and Team 3 was Jeff, Isabelle, Helena, and Daniel. It was then revealed that the teams were actually competing against each other, and that each team was face off in their own "Choose Your Destination" Challenge. Mario won the Team 1 Challenge, Ferd won the Team 2 Challenge, and Jeff won the Team 3 challenge, after some conflict between Daniel and Isabelle. All three won safety for the first eviction of the game, and would be the only three to participate in the Nominator Challenge.

#### Round 2

 **Nominator**

 **Immune**

 **Immune**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee3 Votes**

 **Evicted8 Votes**

Ferd ultimately came out on top in the Nominator Challenge, claiming the power. Ferd decided to nominate Ryan, Kate, and Emily, seeing Ryan as a “thinker,” Kate as “scrappy,” and Emily as a social threat who wouldn’t be voted out, ultimately deciding on Ryan as his target. After realizing all three of them were nominated, the Awesome Alliance began to campaign without directly targeting each other, resulting in Ryan’s eviction due to his lack of connections.

### Round 2

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee2 Votes**

 **Nominee2 Votes**

 **Evicted6 Votes**

In the next challenge, the three returning players ended up being the last three in the challenge, and Daniel emerged on top. He decided to target Isabelle for how she worked against him in the first challenge, and named Aiden and Phoebe as the other two nominees because he didn’t know them. In the speeches, Phoebe talked about how she wasn’t a threat and that one of the other two should be evicted, Isabelle expressed regret for targeting Daniel in the first challenge, and Aiden talked about the whispers of his challenge threat. In a shocking blindside, Phoebe was voted out 6-2-2 but her envelope revealed she has the Round Trip Ticket, allowing her to stay in the game much to the house’s surprise.

### Round 3

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Nominee4 Votes**

 **ReturnedEvicted5 Votes**

After Phoebe’s eviction was reversed, Kate won the next challenge and nominated Isabelle and Phoebe as her main targets, because she felt it would be weird if she didn’t nominate Phoebe after everyone just evicted her and also Emily had accidentally revealed the Emily/Kate alliance to one of Phoebe or Isabelle, causing Kate to see both as a threat even though she couldn’t remember which one heard. Kate then decided on Helena to be the final nominee, and Helena solidified her safe vote status by joking that her whole family was in a car crash and that the only thing she had left was Big Brother. Despite Daniel trying to form a vote flip to get Isabelle out, too many people wanted Phoebe to leave, resulting in her second eviction in a 5-4-1 vote.

### Round 4

 **Co-Nominator**

 **Co-Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Evicted7 Votes**

Kate and Jeff won the pairs nominator challenge after narrowly beating Emily and Isabelle. Together, they decided to target Isabelle and briefly considered Daniel as another nominee, but Jeff wanted to protect their alliance and convinced Kate it was a bad movie. Ultimately, the pair decided on Helena and Ferd as the final nominees. During the strategy talk, it was revealed that Isabelle created many alliances with people at the School of Communication picnic earlier in the day. In her speech, Helena once again joked about her family and Ferd joked about falling in love with all the other houseguests. Ultimately, Isabelle was evicted 7-1-0, and on her way out said that Emily could no longer be her vocal student.

### Round 5

#### Round 1

 **Won First Class  Upgrade Power**

 **Jet-Lagged**

 **Jet-Lagged**

During the advantage challenge, Jeff secretly won the First Class Upgrade power, while Helena and Kate were jet-lagged. Kate chose to sit out of the challenge and Helena chose to give up her vote.

#### Round 2

 **Nominator**

 **Pre-Upgrade  Nominee**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Post-Upgrade Nominee3 Votes**

 **Evicted4 Votes**

Emily emerged on top during the challenge and decided to nominate the three people she wasn’t aligned with: Helena, Ferd, and Jeff, with Helena as the target, all of whom happened to be upperclassmen. Jeff used the First Class Upgrade power, and Emily was forced to name a replacement. She decided to save the other underclassmen and nominated her ally Daniel, much to the house’s shock and Daniel's disappointment. Despite Aiden, Kate, and Mario attempting to get rid of Daniel, Jeff flipped his vote against Helena and Helena was evicted 4-3-0

### Round 6

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Evicted6 Votes**

In the next challenge, Mario outran Daniel to win the Nominator Challenge. Mario, deciding to cut the underclassmen’s numbers, chose to nominate Aiden, Kate, and Mary Kate, not really caring which one of them went home, primarily wanting to protect his alliance with Emily. Knowing they were cornered, the entire Class of 2026 scrambled, but Kate was seen as the biggest threat and was evicted in a 6-1-0 vote.

### Round 7

 **Nominator**

 **Saved**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Evicted4 Votes**

Emily won the Wall Sit challenge after a long face off against Daniel and claimed her second round of power. She nominated Daniel, Ferd, and Jeff for eviction because she knew the three of them, especially Daniel, were coming for her, effectively continuing the upperclassmen vs underclassmen war. Ferd won the Second Chance Challenge and saved himself, leaving Jeff and Daniel on the block. In the speeches, Jeff threw Daniel under the bus hard by discussing Daniel's challenge prowess and social connections, as well as talking about how Jeff didn’t know as many people in the game and that none of the Jury would vote for a random person to win. This, combined with Daniel’s huge threat level, resulted in Daniel’s eviction in a 4-0 vote.

### Round 8

 **Nominator**

 **Saved**

 **Nominee1 Vote**

 **Evicted2 Votes**

After a long strategy challenge, Jeff was able to outmaneuver the rest of the houseguests to win power. He nominated Aiden, Emily, and Mary Kate for eviction as the final underclassmen, not really caring which one of them should go home. Mary Kate won the Second Chance Challenge and saved herself, and Emily was evicted in a 2-1 vote due to her challenge wins.

### Round 9

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Evicted2 Votes**

Competing in the Big Brother Logo puzzle challenge, Mario almost came out on top but failed to realize that he left a piece in the bag, allowing Jeff to seize his second win in a row, also setting a new BBNU record for most challenge wins in a single season. Jeff decided to stay loyal to Ferd and Mario and nominated Aiden and Mary Kate for the second round in a row, once again not having a preference of who would go home. Initially discussing to split the vote, Mario and Ferd decided to listen to Aiden’s speech about using him to make a big move and voted to evict Mary Kate.

### Round 10

 **Nominator**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Nominee0 Votes**

 **Evicted1 Vote**

In the Final Nominator Challenge, Aiden won his first challenge and saved himself from near eviction. With the last bit of power in the game, Aiden decided that Mario's track record of having never been nominated until this round was too much to bring to the Final 3, and Aiden used his sole vote to evict Mario in 4th place.

### Finale

 **Winner5 Votes to Win**

 **Runner-Up4 Votes to Win**

 **Third Place0 Votes to Win**

 **Production's Favorite**

The Jury Members returned to the house and listened as the Final 3 gave pitches as to why they should be crowned the winner of Big Brother Northwestern 7. In their speeches, Jeff admitted to his constant burning of bridges but argued that it allowed him to be in control of who went home each round, Ferd discussed how his common sense and social capita allowed him to navigate his first ever reality game, and Aiden talked about his underdog status compared to the upperclassmen both in challenges and in the game as a whole that allowed him to stay safe when nominated. Ultimately, Aiden's status as the last-standing underclassmen, combined with Jeff's and Ferd's multiple betrayals, netted Aiden the win in a 5-4-0 vote. After the season, Drew selected Jeff to be the recipient of the Production's Favorite award.

#### Jury

 **Jeff**

 **Aiden**

 **Aiden**

 **Jeff**

 **Aiden**

 **Jeff**

 **Aiden**

 **Aiden**

 **Jeff**

## Trivia

* This season was originally planned to be an even split between new players and returning players, but several houseguests had to drop out last minute, resulting in one of the most chaotic casting processes in BBNU history. Originally, Bobby Axelrod, Lola Bodé, and Talya Baverman were all slated to compete before dropping, and were replaced by Jeff Snedegar, Isabelle Cowan, and Mary Kate Tanselle.
* This season currently holds the record for least amount of returnees present in a season featuring returning houseguests, with only 3 of the 12 houseguests being returning houseguests.
* This season marks the first appearance of the Class of 2026 houseguests.
* After winning the Round 5 Nominator Challenge, Jeff set a new record for most challenge wins in a single season, with 5.
* This season ties with Season 1 for the most challenges featured in a BBNU season, with 16 different challenges.
* This season marks the first time since Season 1 that the first evicted houseguest was a first-time player.
	+ Both Rachel Weintraub and Ryan Lein were first time players and evicted first.
	+ Every other season has had a returning player evicted first.
* After participating on this season, Emily Thompson becomes the second person to start as a member of production and transition to being a houseguest, after Drew Slager.
* This is the second season in a row to feature an all-new-player Final 3.
* This season started at 5:18 PM and ended at 9:20 PM, lasting a total of 4 hours and 2 minutes.