Nice guys do finish last, but that's a good thing. At least it was to Eddie (pictured above), who won half a million dollars as the last man standing in CBS' "Big Brother" house.
But while Eddie may have emerged victorious, the show that provided his windfall was one big failure. CBS had "Brother," a show in which 10 strangers were put in a soundstage house monitored by round-the-clock cameras and were evicted one by one, join its reality TV line-up halfway through the summer. But the ratings from "Survivor" hardly translated.
The reason why is simple: people are boring. No one wants to watch the ins and outs of 10 people's lives almost every day. We have TV for the express purpose of cutting those boring parts out. And to watch people peacefully co-exist - dyeing each other's hair and engaging in a dance marathon - was even more excruciating.
I blame the public for that. They voted out the most interesting house members first. People like Jordan, the scheming former stripper; Karen, a mid-West housewife who threatened to leave her husband; and Brittany, a 26-year-old virgin. Surely these people could have provided some interesting fodder.
But CBS wasn't exactly infallible. They broke their own rules. The 10 houseguests were to have no contact with the outside world. So how come Curtis got to go the Emmys? And banished houseguests came back to the house to talk to the remaining ones?
The Eye network must also be blamed for seriously tactless lapses in judgment. At one point, they offered money to the two remaining women in the house to exile themselves from the house in order to make way for a younger, feistier, more attactive replacement. Is there anything more insulting than that? Actually, yes - when CBS asked African-American Cassandra to address the topic of race just to incite some heated discussion in the house.
CBS hasn't exactly learned from their gaffe. They're now casting for a second season. I pray we get the WB here in Charlottesville by then.
So take the money and run, Eddie. Run far, far away and never look back.
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