Jen evicted 6-0, Jess is HOH
I was kind of sad to see Jen go last night. I think Dick and Danielle have made some stupid moves and that Eric and the float herd are getting it too easy. Jen would have been a great wild card to have down the road somewhere.
I also think it was sad the way she had to go out. She totally had a breakdown. I think Jen is one of those people that is really fun, social, and happy. It was probably hard for her to be in a situation where she was so hated by everyone around her, completely double crossed by her new friends, and she felt like she was being tortured by the powers that be over in the production office.
People like Keith over at BB Chatter have been freaking out about Jen’s penalty, calling CBS to protest, and calling Alison Grodner some not-so-nice names on their sites. I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Like I said, it’s a tv show. The producers can do anything they please and throw any sort of twists or turns into the season that they want. That’s how tv works. The show was lagging and I’m sure they were jumping for joy when Jen started going crazy and destroying things and eating.
I think it was kind of sad to watch, really. I mean, when she was destroying Dick’s cigs, she seemed like that bratty kind of girl she’s been in the past. While it was mean, it all seemed kind of like a game for her. Then after she started crying and nonstop eating, she seemed to be completely losing it. When she started attacking Dick and trying to grab a lit cigarette out of his hand, she looked like she was in the middle of a total Mariah Carey style break down. As she was screaming about burning herself, I just ended up feeling really, really bad for her.
On a side note, as much as I think the producers were not at all in the wrong with their decisions about Jen, I do think that it interfered with the game in a way that could end up changing things a lot in the house. Danielle started the stupidity by nominating Jen, who was in her alliance, in the veto ceremony. Still, it looked like Jen might stay and Jameka (who you all know that I hate) would go home. Then Jen added to the shit storm by flipping out and losing her mind. CBS wanted to punish her, but the penalty nomination meant nothing to her and she already said that she wanted to bail before going to the sequester house. None of their punishments meant anything to her. To me, that would have been the perfect time to keep Jen in the house because she was so completely out of her mind that she would have never been able to focus on the game from that point on. Yeah, it’s not fun to live with a crazy lady, but it might get you closer to the $500K to keep her around. I think the producers worried that players like Dick or Danielle would see that their best strategic move might be to keep Jen in the house and watch her unravel while they eliminated on of the Jesus twins. When Grodner and co. say this, they probably put the pressure on the HGs in the Diary Room to vote Jen out. If people weren’t going to vote their way, they would still have the penalty nom against Jen, they could lock up the America’s Player vote, and they could try to persuade a couple more people to vote her out. Bottom line: regardless of the game, the producers wanted Jen gone and that’s why she got evicted this week.
I can see how people are saying that it’s not fair. It definitely isn’t fair. The producers seemed to directly intervene when they saw that Jen was going to be a problem child in the house. Still, it’s a tv show and they have the right to do whatever they want. It’s like when there’s a problem actor on a tv series and the producers figure out a way to kill the character so that they can fire the actor and rid themselves of the conflict. Yes, BB isn’t a scripted tv series, but reality tv follows the same basic principles. I’m guessing that Survivor isn’t fair either, we just don’t have a 24/7 feed to see all the behind-the-scenes string pulling that takes place. But that’s cool…. it’s tv, not the Olympics. It doesn’t have to be fair.
Anyway, just wanted to weight in on the episode last night.
I’m hoping that Jessica nominated Amber and maybe Zach this week, but who knows how things go. I still want Dick to win because I think he’s playing this game in an entirely different way than everyone else (kinda like Dr. Will did) and that it’s been paying off for him so far. He’s a huge threat and yet, somehow he’s managing to escape eviction. That’s so Dr. Will. Everyone knows they need to take him out, but due to his bad behavior, they all kind of want to be sitting with him in the final two.
Ultimately, I’d like to see Amber, Jameka, or Zach gone this week so that Eric/Jess and Dick/Danielle could start to battle for the final four. Don’t make the BB6 mistake, get the float herd while you have the chance. I don’t particularly like Eric or Jess, but I think they’ve played the game well so far and I wouldn’t be bummed to see them in the final four…. with Dick and Danielle of course.
Dean said,
August 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Good post. I disagree with you that Jen should not have been punished. She broke the slop rule. Its a silly rule but its part of the game she should be penalized for it. I wasn’t really rooting for either Jameka or Jen to leave the house because they each have qualities I like but I just wanted each player to have a legitimate chance to stay this week. The penalty nomination would have absolutely screwed Jameka but a penalty vote does not necessarily hurt Jen a great deal. Just as you said, if Daniele wanted Jen to stay around, Jen would have stayed.
I do agree w/ you on the silliness that went on this week. I still a bit confused why Jen was up on the block in the first place but I am frustrated even more with Daniele’s reasoning at the veto ceremony. Because Jen wasn’t in the game primarily for the money she should be punished? What a ridiculous reason to nominate her. Nominate her because she is a good player and your competition but not because you don’t agree with why she is playing the game.
I don’t know why you want to eliminate Amber or Zach but you are certainly entitled to ‘play’ the game the way you want to, just as we all are (as long as we are following the rules). I am sure everyone would agree w/ that…except Daniele of course.
Alexis said,
August 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Actually, I did think that Jen should be punished for breaking the rules. I just think that the producers were trying to punish her in a way that would affect her, but the penalty seemed to be pulled out of thin air.
First it was a penalty nomination, then it was a penalty vote. They couldn’t put her on slop because she clearly wouldn’t follow that rule, and I guess they felt they couldn’t just kick her out, so we ended up with a weird pseudo-punishment. That was the weird part to me.
I agree with people who say that the producers change the rules to benefit certain players, but that’s the way the game has always worked, so I guess we all gotta live with it. Remember BB6 when Kaysar was evicted, but he was by far the highest rated on the Love Em or Leave Em poll on CBS.com, so he got miraculously voted back into the house? Well, this year Dick’s the favorite and I respect the fact that they’re not dropping the ball and letting the Nerd Herd sail on into the final four. The producers want to keep the show exciting and that means keeping Dick around. I just wish they would have kept Jen around too because her erratic behavior also kept me interested in the show.
Instead, now we have Dick, Danielle, Eric and (to a lesser extent) Jess, to keep the game fun. Amber, Jameka and Zach don’t really do anything worth watching, so I wish one of them would have gone instead. Out of the three, I would have liked Jameka gone because I’m tired of hearing about how God’s gonna send her a vision of who will win, and I think that if she left, Amber would totally freak out and that’d be worth watching.
Anyway, this is practically enough for another post… so I’ll stop here.
Dean said,
August 26th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Okay, I see what you are saying. I actually think the penalty was fair. You are right that it came out of thin air but at the same time she did have to be punished. Jen wasn’t evicted yet but she was pretty much out of the house and behaved that way. The producers needed a way to punish her for breaking the rules and to make it stick. I do feel sorry for Jen for the way the house guests treated her but I also feel sorry for the producers for the situation Jen put her in. They expect the house guests to follow the rules and she didn’t do that and she broke them intentionally. Some might say she was showing them up and thats not right.
That said, I agree that certain rules are given to certain players. I read on another board that apparently Dick threw Dustin’s clothes over the wall/roof of the house and was not punished for it. Couple this with the pouring of the iced tea over Jen’s head and his verbal abuse (and I am using that term very literally) of the other players in the house, its clear rules are set differently for different players. If she was punished in anyway for destroying Dick’s cigarettes (which he got back btw) and Dick got a pass for the damage he has caused in the house, you clearly are right that there is a double standard set for different players in the house.