Rumors of Cheating, Misjudged Competition, Anti-Semitism and Abuse - is This Year's Big Brother USA the Worst Ever?

This year's Big Brother, U.S.A. (Big Brother 8) arguably has been the worst season of Big Brother ever. Long-time fans are disappointed, some vowing never to watch the show again. Rumors of it not coming back next year have been going around, as it had already been picked up again by this time last year. This year it has yet to be picked up. And speculation about the reason for this year's disappointment runs the gamut from new-this-year producer Allison Grodner to the poor casting of emotionally unstable Amber and the highly abusive "Evil (Evel) Dick."

For long-time Big Brother fans the first clue that something was amiss was in the casting. Most of the contestants were either beautiful-but-bland or just downright bland. But two stood out as possibly having serious emotional problems that could upset the game in a really negative way.

First was Amber. People thought it was touching, at first, the way she cried when fellow houseguests were nominated or evicted. Then it turned out that she cried about every little thing. Tears pouring. Absolutely gut-wrenching sobs. Ok, there is something seriously wrong with this woman.

Then she was witnessed, on the on-line 24/7 Live Feeds, trashing Jewish people left and right. First she said that her mother and her sister hated Jewish people. And then she said that she herself didn't like them and went on a tirade of why. She even said (and I'm paraphrasing here, not quoting) that when she doesn't like someone, she often finds out later that they are Jewish, and then thinks to herself,'no wonder I didn't like them. This was witnessed by many on-line and even captured and posted to You Tube. But for some reason it was never shown on the television show.

The other unstable person in the house is referred to as "Evel Dick" (or "Evil Dick" as his t-shirt says). He went on hate-filled tirades and personal attacks on every single person in the house. At one point he claimed it was strategy, but as Julie Chen pointed out on one show, he pretty much does it any old time. Even after competitions are over. Which can't be claimed as strategy, thusly.

His tirades are often very anti-female, using the worst profanity and slang about women imaginable. And he even poured a glass of iced tea over one woman's head with whom he was having a disagreement. Most viewers found that absolutely to be crossing the line and added a physical element to his "abuse" but nothing was ever officially done about it.

Later in the show he baited the same woman by repeatedly blowing smoke in her face when he was smoking a cigarette. When she was finally baited and decided to take action, she tried to grab the cigarette out of his hand. Instead of pulling it away from her, he deliberately burned her hand. Surprisingly, this was actually shown on the television broadcast. Sadly, still no action was taken against him for this.

This same contestant, Evel Dick, then admitted on the 24/7 Live Feeds that he cheated. He said that he arranged beforehand with his son to receive coded information about other contestants. When one is the Head of Household, one receives a letter from a loved one. However, receiving outside information about what is going on within the game is strictly forbidden. So Big Brother monitors these communications to make sure there is nothing like that within them. But according to rumors online, Evel Dick claimed he had his son end or begin certain lines of his letter with words that started with the same letter as the name of a contestant he should not trust. That is cheating, according to fans' perception of the rules.

Finally, in the last Veto competition that the contestant Jameka participated in, there was a very bad call by the judges of the competition. All of the competitors were attempting to catch rubber balls that were being shot all over the place and put them into a tube with their name on it. The first one to fill their tube wins. But only green balls could be placed in the tube for the win.

Somehow a blue ball bounced into Jameka's tube in the middle of the competition. The unofficial word is that it rolled off the roof of the house and fell into her tube. She already had some green balls in the tube and had two in her hands. The competition was only about half over. But at that point the announcer said that because she had placed a blue ball in her tube, she was eliminated.

However, she did not place that ball there. She walked around with the other balls in her hands trying to tell them that, but it was never addressed. Now, later, the word is that that was the actual case. That ball landed there with no fault of that contestant. And had she not been erroneously stopped from playing, she might have gone on to win and dramatically changed the outcome of the game.

Next Tuesday, September 18, is the final Big Brother where the winner will be named. The final two are Evel Dick and his daughter Danielle. I know I speak for a lot of fans when I say that this is a sham and a travesty. The winner will get $500,000 and the runner up $50,000. So being in the final two, Evel Dick, who most consider to be misogynistic, abusive and a cheater, will be rewarded with at least $50,000. And his daughter, who vacillated from bland to nasty and back again throughout the entire show, will get the other amount. Not a very happy ending, according to most fans.

Sadly, what should have been one of the most interesting "twists" of this show, the America's Player twist (where one player acted on orders from call-in voting by fans of the show without the knowledge of the other contestants) was completely overshadowed by the rest of this mess. His role as America's Player will be revealed to the entire cast of the show on Tuesday night. And while their reactions should be interesting and kind of funny, it can't really do much to take away from the disappointment and disillusionment that most fans, and probably most of the other contestants, are feeling after this season of Big Brother.

If Big Brother doesn't come back next year, maybe that's for the best after all.