No Laughing Matter

Tonight it was ne'er-do-smile Darren's turn to go. And there was never any doubt. In fact, I nearly published this post yesterday, just to be cocky about it. :) This was easily the most predictable eviction of 2006.

But, truth be told, I didn't find him all that repugnant. Cocky and self-assured, yes. Strange because he doesn't smile and comes across as agitated and humourless (and more than a little bit stalkerish with his off-putting stares), but after watching him in the House for three and a bit weeks, I've decided that he really means no harm. He's just a little strange. So what.

So he's been raised a little odd. Did you notice his mother on stage? She looked like an overly-stern 60-year-old headmistress wearing a bad blonde wig. My apologies (even I feel that came out as a bit harsh), but that's just how she looked. So maybe that has something to do with how Darren turned out.

I'm sure Gretel's attempts to settle the crowd didn't go unnoticed. And for once, I felt that was fair enough. No matter what your opinion of him (and please don't misunderstand me here; I wasn't a Darren fan at all), he certainly didn't deserve to be booed when he arrived on stage or when they cut to him for his live interview with Gretel in the Diary Room. That was just poor. I'd have walked out in disgust if that was how the other side was treated at a sporting event, and I find it even more disgraceful when it's one person being booed simply for being themselves. They might be entering a reality TV show, people ... but they're not fodder for you to trample under your contemptuous feet. That reaction was simply not on.

But back to the point: Darren was also majorly competitive, particularly when it came to winning Friday Night Live. Well, he's young, and it appears that he may have been forced to grow up before his time. Immature? I'm not so certain that's it. I think he's mature, but that his background experience has been limited. I think he was honestly doing the best he could to fit in, be accepted, and get as far as he could in the game. It was never going to happen unless he was successful at the things he attempted. The fact that he was so unsubtle at those things was secondary. His attempts themselves have to be respected as far as him making the most of his opportunity is concerned.

So to summarise, he was competitive and cocky and self-assured and odd. Well, good one. So are all the others.




I liked that he stood up to people like Perry, Camilla and Krystal. Sure, his attempts to sideline each of the Housemates individually and get on their good sides were embarrassingly-transparent, embarrassingly-poor and embarrassingly-embarrassing, but hey -- he was an Intruder so he knew his time would be limited. He had to do something to try and stay in the game. You can't begrudge him that.

In a week where quite a few of the Housemates got on my nerves (Darren, Krystal, Max and my favourite Camilla*), I was still certain that Darren would be the one to go, but found it very unappealing of the others to be acting the way they did.

Despite Fryzie's semi-humorous challenge to Darren to 'grow up, son!' on FNL, I thought that BB's choice of punishment for Darren by making him sit alone on the island for talking of 'mutiny' was cruel and disproportionate to his 'crime'. They were meant to act like pirates all week -- and I think the most piratey thing they could have done would have been to have held a mutiny! The thing about Darren's idea was that it was too good. BB didn't like the idea of the task being out of their direct control (yeah, I know that's the rules, but they shouldn't have chosen a pirate theme if they were worried about that ... pirates are anarchists by definition!), and I felt it showed impressive and creative initiative on Darren's behalf. It may also have made the week's viewing actually interesting to watch, rather than the snore-fest it was. Same for last week. No wonder the show's wrapping up in just another two weeks!

I certainly felt that Darren's drunken (or just plain ill-advised) attempts to crack onto Claire, Camilla and Krystal (at different points during his stay) were very bad moves, and his style of communicating was at times a little rusty, but otherwise he wasn't as objectionable as I found Camilla's behaviour over the past week and a half.

I didn't care too much about the boy until tonight's show. The reception he got tonight made my mind up for me that he'd been dealt a bit of a raw deal. Not as raw as I feel Michael was dealt, but along the same lines. (I'm not going to get into the Michael thing again, and I'm certainly not saying it's exactly the same thing.) But I was happy (and I felt his hardship was vindicated) when he was the first person to receive the next level of prizes. We finally saw him smile in the package of him having a good time, when he found out Queensland won the State of Origin, and when he saw his new car. And I'm glad he was happy.

In short, it's absolutely no surprise that he's out tonight. And I don't object to the result at all. But a warning to Camilla: If you want me (and potentially others) to continue supporting you, don't be so unnecessarily vindictive and carry on so much like a spoilt and spiteful high school cheerleader.

It doesn't suit you.

As for these last two weeks ... I guess tomorrow's Nomination Show will help fill in the gaps. I'm expecting it's going to be a triple eviction or something crazy. Or perhaps they're going to evict someone each night all week during the last week? It'd be a massively ridiculous undertaking, but with now seven Housemates left and this new Rene's Yasmin's Getting Married show about to kick off in its place, there aren't many other options readily available as alternatives.



* Although I'm still hoping she'll win (and that David will come second), Camilla was at her most annoying this week for me. At times she was disrespectful and selfish, gossipy and bitchy, and reputation-attacking and cruel. It wasn't called for and she slipped a few notches in my book. Has surviving so many evictions (and whatever she's imagining the public's reaction to the John and Ashley incident being -- presumably in her favour) caused her to get overly arrogant and confident about her chances of winning? If so, I don't like what it's bringing out in her.


.