No exit
We want to see these things because sometimes, the more worthless and pathetic a show is, the more it feels reckless and decadent to watch it. We know we can't fly to Italy, after all, so what's the next best thing? You guessed it! Watching "Big Brother 8"!
Even though I quickly grow to hate the people on this show, with their endless prattling and their bad slogan T-shirts, I love to watch what happens to people when they have nothing but time on their hands. On CBS's "Big Brother 8" (9 p.m. Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays), the residents aren't allowed to read, they can't play guitar, they can't talk to anyone on the phone. All they can do is overthink their circumstances and plot to destroy each other.
It's fascinating to watch how quickly things turn sour. For the first few weeks, aside from a few rogue lunatics, most of the people in the group are friendly to each other. They laugh easily, play on each other's jokes, trade anecdotes. Slowly but surely, though, they get quieter and more wary. They start to anger more easily.
After a month, you can see all of the cumulative idle hours take a toll on the houseguests, particularly the ones who chain-smoke instead of working out, or pace and twist the knife and mouth off instead of calming themselves down.
The biggest ticking time bomb this year is Dick, whose nickname is, appropriately enough, "Evil." Dick is a middle-aged rocker who looks the way the real Hank Moody might look, after years of too much drinking and smoking and freaking out. First he targeted his obvious enemies: Jen, an apparent narcissist who no one in the house likes, and Kail, a drippy, disloyal, ineffectual schemer who formed a weak alliance with three male houseguests, only to discover that none of them even got along. But once Dick felt comfortable being honest with everyone, he went nuts, railing on anyone who expressed a thought or opinion that didn't mesh with his own.
"I just don't agree and that's way off from what I think," he told utterly friendly and benign houseguest Jameka last week, as if she should care whether her opinions or beliefs fell in line with his.
But remember, these people have nothing to do, and the cameras are rolling! As we've seen, year after year, even though you'd expect the residents of the house to behave self-consciously and keep to themselves for two months, instead they make friendships, break up, fall in love, and mess with each other's heads.
Which would be great, if the producers would boil three hours of footage every week down to, say, just one. Imagine, no more dull head-of-household competitions or interviews with that limp dishrag of a host, Julie Chen. Just one solid hour of hearty laughter, tears and ruthless infighting!
But then, maybe the point of "Big Brother 8" is to give us a taste of what it might feel like to live in a vacuum, without any structure. It's like winning the lottery, or selling a big novel and then not being able to write again, or throwing money around on real estate and surrounding yourself with hired friends. It sounds great. It should be great. So why are these people so miserable?
It's almost enough to make you relish the small joys of good, old-fashioned hard work. But not quite.
Next week: "Weeds" returns and "Flight of the Conchords" continues to shine. But is anyone still watching "Big Love"?
About the writer
Heather Havrilesky is Salon's TV critic. She also maintains the rabbit blog. You can find more of her columns in the I Like To Watch directory.
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