No Takers For Big Brother Bait

An attempt by producers to shake up the faltering reality show Big Brother failed Wednesday when none of the six remaining contestants would take $50,000 to walk out of the house.

Producers had hoped someone would leave so they could bring another person into the camera-infested home - an attractive, opinionated, 22-year-old blonde woman.

Wednesday's one-hour episode was yet another example of how things continue to go wrong for the CBS show, which is slumping in the ratings and ridiculed by critics. It has 24 days to go before one remaining contestant wins a half million dollars by surviving the experiment in voyeuristic living.

The rejection of the inducement (or bribe) to leave was presaged Tuesday when a woman with a megaphone warned from outside the walls of the Hollywood soundstage that it was coming and that it was a trick. The contestants discussed it among themselves and decided they would stay.

So it was no surprise Wednesday when host Julie Chen said a suitcase with $20,000 in cash was available to anyone who would walk out.

"That's a night at the bar for me," said Long Islander Eddie disdainfully.

Chen then offered another suitcase with $30,000. The contestants thought a little harder about this; three will eventually go home empty-handed, the second-place contestant wins $100,000 and the third-place contestant wins $50,000.

Again, no one took the offer, even though three contestants - Eddie, affable lawyer Curtis and United Nations worker Cassandra - were "marked for banishment." Viewers voting online will remove one of them from the house during the next week.

Chen seemed surprised. "Congratulations on your resolve," she said in a disappointed voice.

"I think they're all insane not to take that money," said Beth, the woman who would have replaced any contestant who left.

Beth was clearly introduced to spice up the proceedings: a film clip showed her in a tiny bikini. In an interview, she said, "I'm opinionated, and sometimes that's misconstrued as being a bitch."

Instead, she'll stay on the outside.

Clearly worried that the six remaining contestants aren't interesting enough, producers spent roughly half of Wednesday night's show featuring people who had already been voted out of the house.

Midwestern housewife Karen, who said she stayed up all night after she was voted out of the house reading about herself online, has left her husband and moved to California. Brittany, the virgin with the ever-changing hair colors who was voted out last week, is moving in with her.

Brought back for an interview Wednesday night, Brittany told her former housemates that "it's mean outside." But she wasn't too enamored with life inside the Big Brother house, either.

"It's not healthy in that house," she said.

Written by David Bauder