April showers... a load of bile on her viewers

Every episode of Big Brother frustrates the heck out of me these days. The show is a paean to mediocrity. The skilled, intelligent players are consistestenly voted out by the lesser lights. First Kaysar was booted because of the machinations of the pathetic, spineless Jen, and now April, a boring, sanctimonious, self-righteous, annoying player if ever I saw one, has managed to set things up to "back door" James, one of the better players the game has seen. Pfui.

I could rant about Jen at some length, but I'll sum it up pretty quickly. When America voted by a whopping 82 percent to put Kaysar back in the house, he ended up in a head of household ("HOH") competition within minutes. Fourteen hours later, it was down to him and Jen, and he could have easily gone longer. But (probably trying to position himself as a nice guy and not a huge threat) he offered her an alliance instead of waiting her out. She agreed to it, and then, days later, went back on what she'd said. If she'd been lying to him at the time, out of strategy, I would have probably respected her for playing the game that way. But she wasn't lying. She meant it, then proceeded down a path of rationalizations for going back on what she'd said and screwing him over. What a weasel.

What was particularly interesting about tonight's episode, though, was the America's Choice feature and the emotions it brought up in the players. To put it simply, viewers voting on their cell phones (and maybe on the web site--I didn't vote on this one) could decide which player they wanted to receive a phone call from a loved one. The voters picked California girl Janelle, probably because they thought it would be entertaining to see her receive a call from Michael, the player she'd "hooked up" with earlier in the game. The players in alliance annoyingly christened "the Friendship" were incensed. They have somehow painted themselves as the "good guys" of the game, blissfully unaware at how disliked they generally are by the viewers. They couldn't imagine that voters would pick slightly trashy Janelle over one of them. Yvette, known around our house as "the Mouth" was reduced to tears.

But April's reaction was the most entertaining. She was convinced that the contest was rigged and went so far as to say that anyone who voted for Janelle was a "piece of sh!t" and that the American public must be stupid. Way to respect your audience there, April!

Eh. Enough time spent on Big Brother tonight.