Hosts with the most

As yet another three months of Big Brother concludes in the US, officially ending reality television's summer season, one question lingers in many viewers' minds: how has host Julie Chen kept her job for seven years?

This all-star season was yet another example of how "spectacularly incompetent" she is as a host, to quote USA TODAY from years ago.

For example, as Chen oversees competitions, she's sometimes not aware of what's happening on our screens, such as how contestants are answering the questions she's asking. Similarly, her interviews with the houseguests who remain inside the compound are most notable for how detached she is. They're extremely awkward and full of long, empty pauses.

As she hosts, presiding over the live shows once a week, her behavior is so robotic fans have nicknamed her 'the Chenbot.' At the end of last season, TV blog TVgasm.com compiled clips from multiple episodes that showed Chen saying "but first," uncrossing her legs, and standing up. Her motions, blank facial expressions, and tone were identical from week to week, and proved how predictable she had become.

Jokes about her marriage to CBS president Les Moonves aside, Chen remains because her incompetence has become a part of the show's appeal. CBS may not realize it, but the awkward pauses, stiff movements, and complete detachment from the show she hosts have become a source of amusement for fans of the series.

At least Chen has grown over the years, occasionally showing personality, starting when she hit season three contestant Marcellas Reynolds on the head with her cards after he'd been evicted from the house due to his own stupidity. For the first time, it seemed as though she'd actually paid attention to what happened inside the house.

Nearly all beloved reality show hosts have grown into their roles. In season one of Survivor, Jeff Probst did little more than parrot cheesy lines like "The tribe has spoken." Eventually, however, he became the game's number one student, and brought his knowledge to every Tribal Council, challenging contestants and acting as a stand-in for viewers.

American Idol smartly dumped Brian Dunkleman after season one, allowing Ryan Seacrest to leave behind the cheesy banter and instead showcase his strong ability to smoothly move the show forward.

To be effective, hosts have to be involved, as Seacrest clearly is. They have to intimately understand their show and be doing more than just showing up to read scripted lines off a teleprompter. When the audience understands the show and its cast better than the person who's supposedly leading it, the message is clear: if the person who's in charge of the show doesn't even care about it, why should I?

There are other ways to tell stories without hiring a person to do a job a cardboard cutout could do. Hell's Kitchen uses an unseen narrator to fill us in, while The Real World uses the cast member interviews to structure the narrative and explain what's happening when necessary.