Rachel Reilly Returns In Season 28 Premiere

Just as “Love Island USA” prepares to board up its villa for another year, the doors of the “Big Brother” house are swinging wide open — and your weeknights won’t free up for a while longer.

Yep, “Big Brother” is officially back for Season 28, a momentous year that will usher in the CBS reality competition’s 1,000th episode. To celebrate the milestone, this summer’s theme is “Big Brother Time Trip,” which, among other things, promises to “guide viewers through a season where history is rewritten and anything is possible.”

It remains to be seen just how much fun “Big Brother” will have here. Could Marcellas return to use that pivotal Power of Veto instead of leaving himself on the block? Would Paul flip one of his two consecutive finale-night losses to a win? Might Helen not get pushed?! I suppose we’ll see. For now, the show has leaned into its campiest sensibilities and turned the house’s dining room table into a time machine, which will make way for the season’s most continuum-breaking moments.

I’ll do my own Time Trip here and speed past all the usual “BB” premiere pleasantries. Fourteen houseguests move in on Thursday, and surgical dental assistant Drew — who somehow rivals Josh Martinez’s volume in the Diary Room — quickly theorizes that two more players are yet to move in, bringing the total to a more typical 16. He’s right and he’s wrong: More players are coming in, but there will be three, and they’re all previous reality icons.

Twelve of the original 14 houseguests get to compete to keep themselves safe from the first round of nominations. Using the Dining Table Time Machine, groups of four players are “sent” (they walk outside) to three different dates in the “past” (the redecorated backyard), where they play a mini game that will 1) award safety to one player in each game, and 2) bring an aforementioned reality icon into the house for the summer.

When all the competitions are over, pickleball coach Rome, supply chain analyst Chuk, and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Jason have earned safety for the week, and they’ve ushered in the arrivals of “BB26” alum Angela Murray, “Survivor” vet Rick Devens (but just call him Devens), and multi-season “BB” competitor Rachel Reilly. But wait! Not really! Because when the houseguests are transported back to the Jurassic Period for the season’s first Head of Household competition, a dinosaur throws Rachel into a volcano just as she’s going on about being the “Big Brother” queen, and she’s officially out of the game — a sentence I’ll only type when writing about this show. We’re so back, folks.

Rachel’s replacement won’t be revealed until Friday, on a special episode of “Big Brother: Unlocked” (CBS, 8/7c). I won’t drop the rumored name here for those trying to remain unspoiled, but “Survivor” fans might have even more to look forward to this summer than just Devens.

What did you think of the first “Big Brother 28” episode? Any early favorites — or least favorites? Tell us below!