Big Brother Mutiny?

September 9, 2000 5:29 PM

Big Brother Mutiny? The Most Boring Show in History finally gets somewhat interesting with the houseguests all deciding to walk off on Wednesday...
posted by owillis (11 comments total)

Here's a more concise summary.
posted by owillis at 5:30 PM on September 9, 2000

And now we get to see "The Prisoner's Dilemma" in action: will someone "defect" at the last minute?

posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:14 PM on September 9, 2000

Well, they've given themselves four days to think about it.

If they actually go through with it, they'll have the profound and deep respect of all 28 people who are actually still paying attention to the show.

And only then I can then rejoin the human race. (Oh damn, the Olympics. Never mind.)
posted by chicobangs at 7:52 PM on September 9, 2000

More than 28 people are watching the show. While it's not the hit that Survivor was, last Wednesday's show had 11 million viewers, which is pretty good for a summer show. Ratings-wise, it's not popular, but it's not a bomb.
posted by gluechunk at 8:33 PM on September 9, 2000

I think probably the most significant thing happening with "Big Brother" is that a crew of camera operators and directors are learning to produce a real-time broadcast of something resembling real life (other than sports or a speech) "Truman Show"-style. We will see this again, and I'm afraid it will be uglier... but I'm more afraid that it may not be -- it may actually be compelling enough for me not to feel gross watching it.
posted by sudama at 9:24 PM on September 9, 2000

Is it possible that CBS had this sort of melodrama in mind when the show was created...it's certainly boosted a bit more interest now.
posted by rlef98 at 11:46 PM on September 9, 2000

I like the 'Big Brother is not scripted' line at the bottom of the linked page.Here in Britain, we don't get those sorts of guarantees on every page of the website!
posted by williamtry at 2:27 AM on September 10, 2000

I think CBS must be in a panic; if this really happens, it leaves them with a lot of air time to fill. Ready for reruns of "Gilligan's Island"?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 3:25 AM on September 10, 2000

Seems to me that that is exactly the problem. I was reading an article on Salon about this a while back. The people running the US show tried to conceal that they were making the people in the house perform tasks, which made them all look a bit bizarre.

The UK version - precisely because they are MORE transparent (although clearly this is just a question of degree) - has been much more entertaining. You get to see their interest in and their resentment at certain tasks being set. BBUK is pretty gripping viewing...
posted by barbelith at 3:25 AM on September 10, 2000

Salon covered the first hints of the rebellion a few weeks ago, although we were discussiong the editing a bit more at the time.
posted by harmful at 8:37 PM on September 10, 2000

The rebellion is dead.
posted by aaron at 2:36 PM on September 11, 2000