If Tuesday night's episode wasn't a reality-show producer's plea for sympathy, we've never seen one.

We think we have it bad, forced to rehash episode after somniferous episode of the lamest story ever told; the prospect of facing another episode of "Big Brother" makes us long for the kind of action-packed entertainment Andy Warhol used to make.

But have we really stopped to think about what the gang at Endemol has to contend with? Have we considered their feelings?

A reader volunteers the following bit of insight:

"I saw the video feed on the day the jelly beans were tossed over the fence. What the TV didn't show was Eddie coming out of the Red Room and telling fellow guests: "They said we were boring. I told them, 'Heh, that's your problem. You picked us.'"

The housemates insist on being as exciting as a box of corndogs. It must drive Endemol crazy. Then there are all those obsessive housemate-lovers who chip in to fly message-bearing planes over the bunker (one of which said "Get out now"), and chuck tennis balls and Jawbreakers over the wall.

Now, even more invasively, they are using megaphones to dash our hopes of getting one of them to take the payola and run.

Tuesday night's episode began with this:

"On Wednesday, Big Brother will offer you money to leave!" yells a woman through a megaphone from over the back fence. "Don't take the money, it's a trick!"

An exasperated disembodied Big Brother voice hustles everybody into the house. The voice knows it's far from a trick -- it's a desperate measure and a last resort.

"What trick?" the voice is thinking. "It's a mercy bribe."

Clueless as always, the human horse tranquilizers discuss what they would do if they were in fact offered cash to quit. As always, they over-estimate their power (not to mention CBS's patience).

They assume they'll be offered $50,000 cash (and not the $20,000 -- initially $10,000 -- the network actually plans to offer). The house hamsters, though intrigued, are slightly underwhelmed.

George thinks that Teresa would have him forsake even $100,000 for the sake of the experience of staying in the house competing as far as possible. "But any which way it happens, it's exciting!"

We wish we could say the same.

In the next scene, Cassandra and Curtis convene by the wall to mumble inarticulately and be drowned out by traffic noise while talking about the show some more. Cassandra, as always, thinks they need to have more serious discussions.

Curtis replies, "Not everybody wants to engage in it .. so, let's not do it as a group of six -- then -- that's the only thing -- I'd like to, but --"

We don't follow him, but Cassandra does.

"Yeah," she replies, "but then we get caught with our pants down on Wednesday [If only. --Ed.], when there are six of us."

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