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In the wake of "Survivor," American television viewers have discovered the world of "Big Brother," the latest incarnation of event-television to hit U.S. airwaves. "Big Brother" is more ambitious than "Survivor." It features 10 people living - imprisoned actually - in a house for three months under the omnipresent, relentless eyes of 28 TV cameras. "One house. Ten strangers," the producers' ad copy breathlessly promises. "Every moment captured on video. No contact with the outside world. No luxuries. Who will outlast the others to win 500,000 dollars? You will decide."
The show has already been a phenomenon in the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. CBS aired the show five nights a week, and viewers can follow happenings 24 hours per day on the Internet. Every other week viewers will participate by voting out one of the five men and five women.
One week, the roommates - selected from thousands of contestants - will nominate two people to be expelled from the house. Viewers will then have seven days to vote for which of the two they want kicked out. Three will remain in the last program, when the winner will be announced. The show's producers promise that anything can - and will - happen in the hothouse atmosphere of this latest escapade into "voyeur television." "What makes it a journey is that everything is unexpected," producer Paul Romer told The New York Times Magazine.
"You know what the goal is, as surely as if it's the North Pole, but you never know what you'll find en route. It's an expedition, an expedition of the mind," Romer said.
The hapless participants were presented on Wednesday, at the beginning of their voluntary 90-day imprisonment in the 167-square-meter (1,800 square-foot) home specially designed for the show on a CBS lot in Los Angeles.
CBS's 28 cameras, some equipped with night vision, and 60 microphones strategically placed throughout the house, yard and pool (one of the few amenities) will capture every movement, word or gesture. The contestants are cut off from the rest of the world, with no telephones, television, computers, newspapers or radio. Each are permitted two books and a musical instrument to keep them from going batty. Contestants wash their clothes by hand, bake their own bread, grow their own vegetables and raise chickens for fresh eggs. And anyone who likes long showers is out of luck, as hot water will also be rationed.
The group will receive five dollars per person per week for food and other necessities, and will have to purchase whatever they need with that. They can also get more money by participating in weekly challenges. The only outside contact will take place in the "Red Room," where each Thursday participants will be summoned one at a time to recount their experiences or vote against their housemates.
Dutch entertainment giant Endemol, which created the original format, calls it "part social experiment, part real-life soap and part competition." The network hopes "Big Brother" will equal the success of "Survivor," the network's version of a Swedish series where two opposing teams known as "tribes" competed to survive hardships on a deserted island.
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