The temperatures are rising, which means it can only be one thing: Big Brother season is around the corner! And we won’t have to wait much longer for the iconic summer reality show to kick off its 28th season, as CBS has announced today that Big Brother 28 will premiere on Thursday, July 9, with a 90-minute episode.

Last year, the CBS series put together its biggest season yet, extending a third of its episodes to a 90-minute runtime, and adding the new companion show Big Brother: Unlocked. But Big Brother will keep getting…well, bigger for Season 28, as it will feature the most hours of programming in the show’s 26-year history. And we’ll get a dose of that right off the bat, as the night after the premiere, Friday, July 10, will feature the first episode of Unlocked, followed by another 90-minute episode on Sunday, July 12.

After the first two episodes, Big Brother 28 will fall into its typical airing pattern, one that should be familiar to longtime fans of the show. Yet again, episodes will air on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. And Wednesday episodes will continue to run a whopping 90 minutes, a change that debuted last year. All episodes are currently scheduled to air at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

As mentioned before, Big Brother: Unlocked will also be returning for its second summer on the air. According to a CBS press release, the side series will continue to provide “exclusive footage from inside the house, extended interviews, surprise guest appearances, and behind-the-scenes access.” Additionally, this year will bring a live studio audience into the mix, making the environment more akin to the flagship show’s traditional live eviction.

Last season of Big Brother: Unlocked was co-hosted by legendary winners Taylor Hale and Derrick Levasseur. CBS has yet to announce who will be hosting this year’s edition of Unlocked, or what special guests we’ll see along the lines of last year’s cameos from James Gunn, Jerry O’Connell, Boston Rob Mariano, and Bobby Moynihan. We also don’t know how frequently episodes will come out, and how many episodes we’ll get total this season. It should be noted that this year the show will kick off the day after the premiere, rather than waiting until after the first two weeks, as they did last year.

While Big Brother celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, it still hits an incredibly meaningful milestone this season. Big Brother 28 will air the 1000th episode of the show, making it the only primetime series to ever hit four digits in terms of original episodes. It’s truly wild to think that we have spent almost a thousand hours watching countless showmances, funerals-turned-resurrections, and way, way too much slime. It’s a true marker of where Big Brother falls in the pantheon of television, a reminder that, fittingly, given the original source material the show was named from, someone will always be watching.

CBS has also confirmed that, yet again, fans will be able to watch the Big Brother 28 live feeds on Paramount+ and Pluto TV to watch the houseguests schmooze and scheme 24/7. Julie Chen Moonves will also continue to take to the stage as the show’s veteran host, having been a part of it since its incredibly experimental early days. The cast of Big Brother 28 will likely be announced shortly before the July 9 premiere date.