"Hiiii, I'm Julie Chen."

Don't you love how she says, 'Hi'? She makes it last for two syllables and ends it on a downbeat, giving it that sad serious newswoman feel that usually precedes stories about bunnies getting caught tragically in threshers and ancient, drunken, long-forgotten entertainers passing away.

If this were "E.T.", they'd slow down the theme song.

Anyway, time to find out "officially" whether any of the hamsters have finally decided to band together in solidarity and scurry out of the "Big Brother" house, paw in paw, like tiny rodent Lech Walesas.

Chen is, as always, as cluelessly hyperbolic.

"The big news of the week is the 'Big Brother' rebellion!"

She doesn't mean, of course, that it's bigger news than Chase Manhattan acquiring J.P. Morgan. She's just trying to remind us that she's a serious newswoman, and serious newswomen are always thinking about news, especially if it's big. Then, after determining the size of a particular news item, they investigate it.

"Let's find out if the houseguests still mean business," she resolves, not seconds after showing us clips of furiously back-peddling hamsters and of a rapturous (yet totally unconvincing) George reiterating his intention to walk.

"You all changed your mind a few times," Chen points out. She asks George why he bailed on his own revolution.

"Well, my decision influenced two others in this house. Okay? I had no right to do that. The chicken man's stayin'."

These are fateful, final words.

No Cuban freedom fighter, looking up anxiously over his shoulder at the Bay of Pigs, waiting tragically for the air support that never came, felt as abandoned as we do right now.

"Well, George," drones Chen, like a Thorazine-munching Daria impersonator, "it was originally your idea for everyone to walk in the first place. Are you disappointed with everybody's decision?"

"Not at this point, no," says George, looking awfully disappointed. Close to tears, actually.

"Okay," Chen says, cheerfully moving on.

Uh, Julie? In our Intrepid Newswoman Handbook, which we have a copy of right here, it says that when you're questioning someone, and that person says, "Not at this point, no," it actually means "Yes."

And it says here that a follow-up question is in order.

Julie's not listening.

She reminds the hapless malcontestants that they all willingly turned down $50,000 the week before to leave the show. (The hamsters turned the cash down on the shaky premise that it was somehow immoral to take cash from a game show.) Chen informs them that there's another suitcase in the Red Room.

Guess what's in it? Not a dime. But guess what else? The chance to fly a plane with their very own message over the house. Yippee.

The hamsters are duly thrilled.

A "Brittany, where are you now?" sequence ensues. Brittany, it turns out, is at "Cuzzy's." As her dad, Don, explains, "We're here at Cuzzy's bargain night to welcome Brittany home, and also because it's her birthday."

At least we think he said "bargain night."

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