Article on the final show
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Jbfrommi

Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 05:00 am EditMoveDeleteIP
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|83706|1|,00.html

It Ain't Heavy... It's the End of 'Big Brother 4'


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - An entire summer of claustrophobia and perplexing challenges, casual sex and strategic cuddling, Man-Trolls and Midgets, ducks and turtles, mimes and gnomes, VMAs and STDs, product plugs and sponsortainment, peanut butter and jelly, lutefisk and McDonalds, abdominal exercises and blimp rides, pinata smashing and Cuban bashing, betrayals and tenuous alliances and this is what "Big Brother 4" has come down to? The $500,000 prize will either go to an aggressive, slightly racist schemer or a lazier, slightly racist schemer. Jun or Alison? Alison or Jun? Is there any chance we can get Jack back in at the last minute to provide a third option?

As the Wednesday (Sept. 24) finale begins, there are only two voting possibilities for the jury of evicted housemates: They can either vote for Alison, who clearly played the better strategic game and stepped over many many toes, or they can vote for Jun, who isn't likely to win the "Big Brother 4" Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, but backstabbed fewer people.

The 40 minutes of filler (I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt and assume that four minutes will be really thrilling) begin with Julie Chen sitting on the couch in snakeskin (or alligator, or crocodile, or something scaly) pants and high heals. When she stands up, she stumbles over her cues, suggesting the finite limits of her multitasking abilities. Nobody ask this woman to chew gum or else the show will never end.


The two finalists are celebrating and talking trash in the confessional. Both are confident that the other alienated enough people to make it a tight contest.
Alison, in the middle of a very unfortunate facial outbreak, expresses confidence that feminists will understand what she and Jun did as somehow liberating. If these women are the faces of Fourth Wave feminism, somebody is in trouble.

Back in the jury room, Robert's arrival is greeted by the other six members of the panel with resignation.

"Ali, I guess, she got lucky. She got lucky." Dana says. Dana's a moron. Jack tells her as much.

"I'd rather choose the turtles," Robert notes of this decision that at least one person calls "the lesser of two evils."

We've reached the point where members of the jury get to interrogate Alison and Jun before making their choice.

Alison says she should win because of how she played the game. That's her story and she's sticking to it. Jun talks about her shifting alliances and how various people carried her to the end. Alison is candid about her moments of deceit. Jun explains how she turned other people's eating habits into her advantage. Alison actually speaks with total candor, to the point of being insulting. Jun talks in circles and excuses her personal attacks as attempts at humor. Hilarious.

"There were times where I was honorable and there were times where I wasn't," Alison summarizes.

"I did not use the powers of persuasion that Alison did," Jun says as a campaign platform.

The cameraperson has discovered the "zoom" function on their equipment. We get a zoom-in on everybody's face. One after another after another. The teases from the confessionals make it seem as if Alison has the win in the bag. Every jury member casts a vote and CBS sells product.

After voting, the jurors are sequestered and forced to watch the entire season, which sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me (though I suspect that at least they didn't have to watch commercials). After having to suffer through the whole season, they get back together and exchange uneasy glances. Even Michelle is back and ready to spit some mad game.

Dana takes exception to her Man-Troll nickname and to Jack's legendary declaration she has the sex appeal of a buzzard's crotch (Jack admits that growing up in West Virginia, he sometimes found buzzards pretty darned cute). Jee is upset about Erika's early signs of racism. Rob just wants to giggle about getting to watch David and Amanda have sex (which apparently so disgusted Miss Prissy Michelle that she instructs David never to darken her towels again). Mostly what everybody agrees on is that they don't like Alison.

After getting everybody together, Julie Chen continues to show a sixth grade fascination with whether Dana and Justin are going to be "2-Gether 4-Eva." They refuse to make any promises. David and Michelle say they'll talk again. Erika and Robert agree to be friends. Nathan insists he'll never speak to Alison again. And Jack says he'll never get back together with the FBI. Then, the evictees return to the house and to Jun and Alison. There are no hugs.

Surely the end must be near.

The moment of truth arrives. Dana votes for Jun. Justin votes for Jun. Nathan votes for his cuddle-buddy Alison. Jack votes for Jun. Jee votes for Jun. Erika votes for Jun. Robert votes for Jun. Each juror expresses their disappointment at conduct of the finalists.

The winner, by a vote of 6-1, is Jun. Interestingly, if Alison had any kind of disappointed reaction, the zoom-happy cameraperson missed it. She's just all smiles.

Back with Earth-toned Julie, Jun and Alison admit that they wanted more of the jury members to be happy for them. Only when Julie reads a note from her boyfriend Donnie does Alison actually seem terrified. Donnie gives Alison a mostly positive review and she seems happy and relieved, if we're to believe anything she says.

Fittingly, the final shot of the season is of the mime from last week's episode. We miss the mime. He never said anything mean about anybody.

Let the search begin for "Big Brother 5." We can't wait.


Did the jurors make the right choice? Was there a right choice? Sound off on our boards...

Bastable

Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 08:05 am EditMoveDeleteIP
What a cynical writer.

Few of us thought the first 40 minutes were "filler"--we thought we needed to hear from the jury, and we heard from them.

I get so tired of smart-aaleck stories like these. They seem to be written by bitter nobodies who wish they were somebodies.

Johnnydollar

Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 08:54 am EditMoveDeleteIP
It's a bit cynical, but amusing, and I didn't find a lot to disagree with in it.

Here's another article that raises some interesting issues:

http://jam.canoe.ca/JamBigBrother4/sep25_bb4-can.html