If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then CBS should be bright red by now. Today ABC announced it will air its own summer competition that sounds almost exactly like Big Brother.

In The Glass House, premiering Monday, June 18 at 10pm following The Bachelorette, 14 contestants will live in a house monitored by cameras that observe their every move (just like Big Brother).

The only different between the two is that The Glass House is entirely dependent on the viewers. People who watch and follow the show online (there won't be 24/7 feeds like Big Brother, but there will be occasional online live streams from inside the house) will have a chance to influence the outcome. Viewers will vote on who stays, who gets a chance to come back, what games they play, what the contestants wear, where they sleep, etc.

So if you watch Big Brother, it's like season 1 when viewers voted (a colossal failure that was immediately changed). There's also a large "America's Vote" component, only Big Brother limits that to things like food choices.

Will the presence of a second set of summer TV hamsters deter people from watching Big Brother 14, which premieres Thursday, July 12? Or will The Glass House fail like the cheap imitation it is, like when ABC trotted out its Amazing Race clone Expedition Impossible last summer?

My vote is on the latter. Letting the viewers vote for the outcome was a disaster in season 1 of Big Brother and the show became what it is today thanks to the isolation the houseguests have from the outside world. We want to watch these people like voyeurs, we don't want to control their every move like gods.


(Image courtesy of ABC)