Julie Chen Moonves previews Big Brother 28 house, time-trip theme

Julie Chen Moonves gave CBS Mornings viewers a first look inside the Big Brother season 28 house, where the franchise’s new time-travel theme doubled as a milestone marker for the show’s 1,000th original episode. The tour arrived as CBS prepared to launch the new season with a redesigned set built to turn the series’ own history into part of the production.

Season 28 premiered Thursday, July 9, 2026, with a 90-minute episode at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. CBS said the season’s title is Big Brother: Time Trip, and the network framed the concept as more than another game twist, using the house itself to signal that the series was reaching back through its own archive to stay visible in a crowded television market.

That strategy gives the long-running reality competition a clear broadcast identity at a moment when legacy shows are under pressure to justify their place across linear TV and streaming. CBS said Big Brother became the first U.S. primetime series to reach 1,000 original episodes, a benchmark that underlines how the show has turned durability into a selling point. The redesigned house and the first-look photos and video released ahead of the premiere extend that message, with the set and its visual cues doing part of the storytelling that once would have belonged almost entirely to the game.

Chen Moonves has described the new season as a return to the franchise’s past rather than a routine reset, saying the show was revisiting earlier moments instead of simply layering on another gimmick. She also used pre-premiere interviews to swat down speculation about the cast, saying some of the rumors were “dead wrong.” Security around the production has also been tightened after last season’s kidnapping-triggered concerns, adding another layer of attention around a franchise that has spent more than two decades keeping itself in the national conversation.