by Susan Schechter and David Bloomberg
-- 07/10/2002
Because of the changes CBS has made to the ending of Big Brother 2, the results are fairly predictable depending on the outcome of the HoH contest. Who will stay? Who will go? And who will win?
Here is where the U.S. version of Big Brother gets interesting. In every other BB around the world, the winner among the final three contestants is picked by John Q. Public. But the folks at the Tiffany network, in changing the rules to spice up the ratings, have ruined the ending. There will be no surprises left in the show, once the new Head of Household (HoH) is picked.
I was chatting with a friend of mine in England this morning, and she didn’t know why our BB would end this way. I tried to explain it to her, but I don’t particularly like the way it is going to play out either.
The last HoH competition will occur over several days, ending live on Thursday. The first part of the competition, shown live after Hardy’s eviction has Will in the lead. And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see how the series will end.
Here are the three scenarios:
Monica wins HoH. Monica already made clear she wants to be with Will in the final two, which means she will get rid of Nicole. Faced against Will, Monica would most likely win, since only Shannon and Mike would probably vote for Will (it’s possible a couple others might hold grudges against Monica, but they probably hold bigger ones against Will). Therefore if Monica wins the last HoH, we can assume she will evict Nicole.
Nicole wins HoH. Nicole, no matter how distasteful it would be, would evict Monica for the same reasons that Monica would evict her. She stands a much better chance against Will. In this scenario, I am not so sure it’s clear that she would win. Given the situations Nicole has found herself in (allied with Hardy, who became an enemy of Kent, for example), others could swing their votes in Will’s favor, because of the way Nicole has been playing the game lately. In fact, the Nicole vs. Will scenario, the only votes that Nicole has for sure in her pocket would be Autumn and Hardy. Will definitely has Mike, Shannon, and Krista. Others could go either way. It is possible that Nicole will pull a Colby and decide that she just wants to make sure Will gets nothing, even if it means she would lose to Monica. It’s not likely, but the seeds of this idea have been planted in several of her recent comments about how sickened she is that Will could end up winning money.
Will wins HoH. Will, certainly knowing that he has a much better chance against Nicole, would get rid of Monica. He really has no other choice.
If CBS had kept the viewer vote at the end, it could have ended up being much more interesting. Will would get the votes that Josh got last year – the teenage girls. He might also get the votes of many in the viewing public who enjoyed his antics these past few weeks and figure the show might have been rather boring without him. Against Monica, he would probably still lose, but the final result would definitely be up in the air. Never underestimate the power of humor, and Will has added a lot of it. Nicole might win based on the sympathy card, since she has said several times on the CBS show that her marriage might be ending, but she would be the long shot. It’s much more likely that most viewers are sick of her whining and don’t like the fact that she has gotten special treatment (if e-mails to RealityNewsOnline are any indication).
Once this Thursday’s HoH competition is finished, the winner evicts the loser immediately, leaving only the final two for a week. We already can be at least 99% sure Will will be among those two finalists, the interpersonal relationship will be interesting. Anybody want to take odds on a houseguest having a knock-down-drag-out fight with him? This should be a real ratings booster! Put Nicole and Will in the house by themselves and you’ll have the most interesting fight since Tyson bit of Holyfield’s ear. Maybe that’s the way CBS should purposely end things next time. Don’t have anybody pick a winner. Just lock the last two in the house together and whoever is left standing wins.
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