Big Brother 9’s cast will compete as pairs with their producer-selected “soulmates”

The cast of Big Brother 9, the show’s first winter edition, has been announced, and once again producers are handicapping contestants by pairing them up. However, this season, they’ve been matched with their alleged soulmates, and will do everything as a pair, and even be evicted in twos.

A recent CBS teaser ad said that “we’ve matched each of them with a soulmate. They’ll compete together, and if they’re not careful, be evicted together,” and that twist was confirmed on The Early Show this morning. Executive producer Allison Grodner told Julie Chen, “Your life in the house depends on this other person. You’re going to sleep in the same bed together, you’re going to compete together, hold the Head of Household together, get nominated together, and ultimately get evicted together.”

The cast consists of nine men and seven women, which means there is one gay male couple. Since they compete in pairs, and assuming one couple is eliminated each week, that means the show will only last about eight weeks, including the first non-elimination week. Of course, the producers might also decide to split them up at some point.

Grodner suggested that the houseguests won’t initially know about the twist. “Each houseguest filled out a love match profile as part of their application,” Julie Chen explained, and Grodner said, “16 singles living in a house suddenly discover that their perfect love match is sitting right next to them.”

“Perfect love match”? Is she kidding? Who on planet Earth would trust these often-sadistic, ratings-obsessed producers to find their true loves? Of course, if they failed to find good matches, that’ll probably make even better television as the couples fight yet are forced to stick together.

The cast includes a former Penthouse pet, a paparazzo, and a guy who says he’s homeless because he’s traveling the world on his bike. TV Guide has a slideshow showing all 16 and their ages and occupations. Ultimately, they seem familiar, and Grodner didn’t do much to engender confidence that this cast will be any different than those from past seasons, saying “these people are over the top, some amazing characters.”

Meanwhile, The Early Show also included footage of the new house, which on the exterior appears to be a secluded mountain cabin. But while some rooms continue that theme, others are completely different and random, like a tropical, surfing-themed bedroom and a rather plain-looking HOH room.

Other details about the house were revealed this week online. To generate some free publicity, producers let a group of people in the house for a day, intrepid journalists like CBS-owned The Insider’s Cheryl Woodcock, Fox Reality and Road Rules’ Mark Long, and Kimberly Caldwell of the TV Guide Channel. Like the others, she produced journalism that sought to reveal critical information to the public (“I even tasted slop, which is just like vomit”) and demonstrated solid journalistic objectivity and integrity (“I’m not just a huge fan of Big Brother — I’m a huge psycho fan!”).

This sounds uber-lame but I'm sure I will watch every minute....