Big Brother 4 started last night and at last the big secret is revealed: The winner will take home a million bucks! I was pretty satisfied with that revelation (though I would’ve loved it if the “monkey in the house” rumor had been true). The other big reality shows have all gone to a million, and Big Bro needed the raise to compete. I also like the idea that they aren’t going to tell the housemates for a while. So many of them gave “It’s the experience!” as their reason for going in, it’ll be interesting to see if they change their tunes once they hear the prize has quadrupled. I was also really happy with the “Back to Basics” approach of the show. The house is huge but it’s basically the same layout as last year. The Kickoff Show was fairly fast-paced and I liked that they just introduced the contestants, showed a quick clip of rejected people, and then got them into the house. (None of that whole “introduce pairs of people but only let a few in” thing they did last year.) The contestants themselves are a mixed bag, I think. There were a couple interesting people – I liked Trevor, Merlin, and Catherine right off the bat – but several of the girls just seemed like cookie-cutter “girlz gone wild!” types. I was pleased that some of them were over 30, but a little dismayed at the lack of overweight and gay people. (I like to have all the stereotypes represented in my reality shows.) But hey, Gretel didn’t look too bad! I was mesmerized by her boobs all night. How do you do that? Snookums thinks she had secret powerful structural apparatus hidden under her armpits. All in all, I think it was a much better kickoff than last year. I’ll be watching.