Trapped suddenly, amid what was once a world of infinite possibilities, in the presence of people none of whom have anything interesting to say and can't think of anything interesting to do.

Watching any real possibility of actual action or conflict go out the window as the most interesting personalities, one by one, are led away, as a cruel god seems to laugh from the heavens.

We're telling you, watching the last days of "Big Brother" were murder.

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What?

You thought we were talking about "Survivor"?

Well, that's pretty boring too.

It is getting a little surreal, though. The survivors now have some rice, and look a little less like they've just been rescued off a raft adrift for weeks in the ocean.

But there's still very little to do. Fire, says Colby, is "the TV of the outback."

We get to experience this phenomenon secondhand, so to speak, and the meta-experience isn't much fun.

But then we noticed something else, an annoyingly odd sensation: a pulling, almost ... a tugging. It took a while before we realized that the "Survivor" producers were going for our heartstrings.

Yes, folks, it's a three-hankie edition of "Survivor," complete with lots of crying, lots of snifflin', kids missin' their moms and wives missin' their husbands and all sorts of other sentimental stuff.

Like a metaphorical suicide to save a friend.

And we haven't even mentioned the marriage proposal yet!

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It's still grim on the outback. After the flash flood wiped out most of the camp, the group has food and fire again, but their lean-to sucks, and when it rains, as it did last night, they just get soaked.

We get to hear Elisabeth-with-an-s and cowboy Colby talk about how the rain seeps in and soaks their pants and legs and socks.

The days go on and on. Besides fire watching, the group has a backgammon game.

You gotta wonder about people who lost their food and matches in a flood but somehow managed to make sure their backgammon didn't get lost.

Indeed, we also get to see the damage that the flood did to the original Barramundi camp. It's now under a foot or two of water.

Nurse Tina is looking grim: Colby says, "It's the worst I've seen Tina. Yesterday, Tina hit rock bottom. Elisabeth's been that way for a while."

Elisabeth looks bad, too: She sometimes has an almost disturbing vacant look.

We watch her as she tenderly picks away an ant or something from the eyelid of her closest outback compatriot, Kentucky Joe, the older Rodger.

He, like chef Keith, seems to be holding up OK.

But the reward challenge changes everything.

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