The tie-breaker question was how many combined minutes did all the houseguests stay in their little glass houses in the glass house challenge.
But the question jayjay objects to (I think) was before that, setting up the tie, about whether there was a third pre-existing relationship still in the house, to which the answer was fact, but the relationship is that of the hamsters, not houseguests.
Yeah, the guinea pigs question was freaking bogus.
And I do remember the glass-box question, and it was clear (to me anyway) that they were asking for a cumulative answer – I was quite WTF on Sharon’s answer.
Now, as to the other stuff, I don’t know – but I’d be shocked, shocked to learn that there was any trifling with reality in a reality show.
Y’all seem awfully invested in a reality show. Do you subscribe to the extra for-pay content or something? As for Sharon’s answer, she dropped first due to a hurt back. Since the question has a built-in penalty for going over, it is conceivable she would guess low.
Ryan had to guess Fact on the last question, since that’s the only way to force a tie-break. As for why the producers made a question with a trick answer, they want paranoia in the house. All of the preceding questions were correctly answered “Fiction”, so the last one would have been lame to be fiction as well. And insinuating an extra relationship stirs the pot nicely, with the added bonus of a smug Chen-bot reveal at the finale.
As for Natalie, she had every opportunity to win the last HoH for herself, but chose to trust Sheila and give her a gift. That would have given her an advantage should she make it to the end, since she would get Sheila’s vote. She was also making a play for Sharon’s vote with the girl power argument.
But the critical mistake was giving up the HoH powers, and Natalie paid dearly for that.
As such, Ryan and Adam were correct to eliminate Natalie as a threat at a time when she could not hold it against them (Sheila cast the decisive vote and one of the boys can always claim they “had her back” in the split vote).
Thus far, everybody has been playing to advance themselves, so why would you believe there is an ulterior motive?
Where does an ulterior motive come in? Yes, the houseguests are all playing for themselves, and the producers want good tv. Nobody’s motives here are ulterior…they’re all right out in the open.
That last non-tiebreaker question was just so full of crap, though…goddamn Team Oh Christ…
My first reaction to the guinea pig question was, bullshit. It was either the producers, a. manipulating the show in favor of Ryan, b. trying to sow seeds of doubt in the players, c. just being really stupid.
I find all three possibilities equally likely.
You’d think that with all the diary room tampering going on, they’d at least clue Natalie into the fact that she has a microphone so she DOESN’T HAVE TO YELL!
Also, I can’t wait to see her go all Fatal Attraction on Matt in the Jury House. My prediction is that he’ll greet her with a firm handshake and a “My, you’ve put on a few pounds!”.
I only wish someone would’ve told Natty “it’s God’s will” after the eviction.
The Hamsters question was totally out of place, yet I figured Ryan was taking a chance to catch up. Sharon blew the final question. I said “400” while watching and was still 100+ minutes off.
Those math tie-breaking questions are meaningless anyway. Julie never gives them enough time (or what would be enough time for me) to come up with a well considered answer. Or even a semi-well considered answer. It’s more lucky guessing than any kind of measure of observational or memory skill. She might as well say, “I’m thinking of a number, whoever gets closer…”
I haven’t followed the live feeds or boards, but I did notice some re-shooting going on.
On one episode, they showed a competition where the houseguests had to guess numbers about various things without going over. It showed a couple of them giving their answers and showing their chalkboards to the camera. It looked to be sometime past noon juding from the shadows.
The following week, while showing clips from the earlier show, they showed the same housequests giving the same amswers, but this time the sun was much farther down and everyone had shadows covering them.
For such simple shots, why would they re-stage that and show different versions of it?
I can handle a little product placement, but using half the freaking episode to promote a movie seems a bit much. 'Twas fun watching them bash each other over the head, though.
So – physical or mental POV competition, do you think?
The SECOND film this season, at that. And both of them were Vegas-based, too. And even at that, it seems like the episode ended early. On my VCR clock, it was 8:53 when they went to last commercial spots before credits…that seems at least a couple of minutes early.
Since I know who won it, I have no choice but to believe it’s physical…
Yeah, I’d noticed that too. The first one didn’t eat up quite as much of the episode, though.
I don’t want to know who won POV, though … with your hint, there’s still some ambiguity (strength vs. endurance – no, don’t tell me which! 
)
Yeah, that’s why I went ahead and posted it. It’s still sufficiently ambiguous, given that 3/4 of the current houseguests couldn’t win a mental competition if they were given 50 bonus points and an answer key.
The movie promotion was way too heavy-handed. Plus the women’s screaming was very annoying. A new movie (WOOOOOOOOOOOO!) starring Ashton Kutcher (WOOOOOOOOOOO!) which takes place in Las Vegas (WOOOOOOOOOOO!) will be (WOOOOOOOOOOOO!) the reward (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!) for the winners of the compe- (WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!) tition! (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!) I know they are told to do this (I hope this isn’t their normal behavior) but it was just too much over too little.
Heh. Speaking of this (you all may have already touched on this previously), was anybody else REALLY SURPRISED a couple of weeks back when they interviewed Adam’s family and they carried on and on about how smart he is?
Still rooting for Sharon, but I doubt she’ll make it.
Wait, I’m confused. It’s Tuesday, right? (Yeah, election day, that makes it Tuesday.) Eviction is usually Wednesday, right?
(seriously, I’m so fried tonight I’m not sure of either of those premises.)
This is the final week. They need to double up on the evictions to be able to have the finale Sunday night.
Eviction tonight (this was NOT a live show…Sharon’s been gone since yesterday and they’ve already done two of the HoH competitions). Final HoH competition tomorrow, eviction tomorrow, live show. Jury questions and final vote, live show, Sunday.
Okay, cool. As I said, I was fairly out of it last night so I wasn’t sure whether my nights were wrong, my understanding of what usually happens on a given night was wrong, or what.
Pls. spoiler anything that hasn’t been shown on network TV today – I’m looking forward to this evening’s show.
I had the same reaction. My tv reception is spotty, but since I discovered this magic switch on the antenna, my picture quality has improved enormously. But, my sound quality sucked. I coped with it by moving to a point in the room where it didn’t suck for most of NCIS, but didn’t feel like doing so for Big Brother–except during the POV challenge. But I left the TV on, and suddenly realized that it sure looked like they were doing a final HOH endurance type competition–which didn’t compute. Wait–when does the season end? (Thank you jayjay for answering this question already).
I’ll go out on a limb here and predict Ryan as the final winner.
Loved the scenes with Matt ducking Natalie last night. Funny shit. Ya shouldn’t’ve let her give you the blow job, dude …