Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Problem With The Eviction Twist

Although we've had 1 week already that proves my theory wrong, in an intelligent world it theoretically should be right.

On Friday night, we find out who will have the power to remove a HM from the nominees, saving them from eviction. Therefore, they potentially have the power to save themself if need be. We will assume this HM has all neurons firing and is smart enough to know to keep themselves in the game as long as possible, so if they are in the bottom 3 we will assume they will remove themself.

At this point the only way for the audience to ensure the FNL winner is even nominated is for them to land in exactly 4th bottom place in number of public votes. This is a statistic that is not even worth aiming for, especially since we do not know the order of the bottom HMs, the margin between them, or the total number of votes in total BB receives each week. Therefore, again assuming the audience is intelligent, a viewer who wanted the FNL winner evicted would realise the improbability of getting them nominated, and stop voting, and a viewer who wanted to save the FNL winner would know that they could save themself if in the bottom 3, and stop voting.

With (theoretically) no votes coming in for the FNL winner between Friday night and Sunday night, presumably the peak voting period, they are almost certain to end up in the bottom 3, and following the above logic, save themself and put someone else in their place. So, it is as if the FNL winner basically gets immunity from nomination/eviction. So why go to all the trouble of making it a twist?

That is the logical explanation anyway. But last week proved why they would go to all the trouble. Obviously the viewers did keep voting to save Rebecca (or she just happened to have enough votes to ensure she was still in with a chance), so Rebecca did not end up in the bottom 3, and then improbably did end up being in exactly 4th place and getting herself nominated, and then despite even having the 4 point bonus to help save herself, decided to use them to evict herself anyway. This is obviously the most illogical and improbable outcome for an eviction possible, yet somehow managed to happen in the second week!

So I guess all it proves is there is just no knowing what will happen on BB!