Big Brother 3’s Lori -- Gone All Too Quickly

In my preview article for Big Brother 3, I stated Lori wouldn’t go far. But to be evicted first?

Frankly, until the veto came up, I thought Marcellas was gone. But Marcellas, like a cat , got another life. Whether or not he has a full nine lives remains to be seen.

People who have the live feeds have realized a few things. One, there was a lot of the show that CBS is not showing ,and I am not talking about the semi-nudity you can see on the live feeds. (Among other incidents, one of the women was shown topless, and one of the guys was shown adjusting himself through his shorts, which also left nothing to the imagination).

Anyone watching the live feeds saw something in Lori that saddened me, because I like her. Lori started to unravel just a bit. Not like Nicole last year - but if you left her in the house for three months, it might have happened.

I like Lori. I was thrilled that she thought about how she would look on TV and would not stay in bed with two other people. I don’t know Lori from Adam, but I can tell you this: She has good morals. She is a good mother. She didn’t want her kids thinking she was in some kind of Big Brother ménage a trois.

So right now I cannot believe she was the first person out. To help Lori - and myself as well - take solace in this strange eviction that was by my estimation two weeks early, let us paraphrase what Penny, from the UK BB2 house, said: The only two people who are remembered from these shows are the people who leave first and last.

I think there was a lot of veracity in this statement. From the first season of BB here in the U.S., Will Mega still looms large in my mind, as does the winner, Eddie McGee. Second house, sweet sweet Sheryl, and the winner, Will.

Now add Lori to this.

Lori made a few mistakes in the house, but were they really mistakes? I couldn’t imagine living in the Big Brother house. Yes, I downloaded the application and filled it out. Yes, I made a video tape. But I didn’t actually apply. There is no way to escape your roommates when they get on your nerves. You simply cannot escape the other houseguests in the Big Brother house. You are stuck with them 24/7. And worse, even if you do find a moment of solitude, there is a camera recording what you are doing. The only way to get any privacy in the house is to crawl into bed and pull the covers over your head.

Frankly, I think anyone will lose it eventually in an environment like Big Brother. The fact that the majority of the other houses in the world have a two month curtain on how long the guests stay says a lot. The U.S. has one of the longest houses at three months. The house becomes a vacuum. And the sanest of people could bend and break. It’s inevitable.

And that is what we saw on the live feeds regarding Lori. She really wanted to be in the house. She probably knew going in she was going to be leaving before the end - but not first. Judging from her comments on the CBS web page, she was going into this for the experience. I commend her.

But she started to unravel once she was nominated. It isn’t the first time a contestant has fallen apart at being nominated - and it won’t be the last. What CBS didn’t show is that Lori started to annoy the other guests. Would this have happened had she not been nominated? Probably not. CBS did show the scene where she confronted Danielle about Gerry’s personal hygiene habits. I believe Lori would have stayed under the radar with that if she hadn’t had the pressure of nomination already weighing on her. But it involved Gerry, and Gerry had the power of veto at the time, so…

But there was more than that. On the live feeds, complaints were launched about her constant use of clichés and non-sequiturs. Of course, any time people live together in this type of situation, any and every nuance is picked at.

Of course, if the audience had the power to decide who should stay or go, the results might have been different - even if her behavior on the live feeds had been widely known.

I commend Lori for the way she left the house. It was not the best exit - my favorite was Autumn’s from last year. But she left with her head held high, and was not surprised by the eviction. She left with her dignity.

Shortly, the cannibalization will start, and the backstabbing. In order to stay sane when that starts you need a personality like Danielle’s. Lori’s would not have done well under that pressure. So maybe it’s a good thing that Lori left before it gets really ugly.

I just feel bad, because the time was just a bit too quick to really get to know her. I look forward to seeing her again in September.

Susan is a BB addict, and confesses she needs a life besides watching BB. She can be reached at sschechter@earthlink.net.

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