Television: We Like To Watch

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One suspects and hopes our souls will survive. In fact, viewers may reject VTV altogether before long. In Holland, Big Brother's follow-up, De Bus, drew just 5.7% of viewers, compared with 53% for its predecessor, even though its pretty young contestants all shared the same 5-m-wide bed on their communal-living bus. Survivor, gripping as it may currently be, seems like it should be in the dictionary under novelty. And Big Brother, with its less exotic setting and nightly schedule, may prove a Big Bore once viewers sample it. Not that you're the sort of person who would ever watch Big Brother in the first place. Are you?

--With reporting by Carole Buia, Amy Lennard Goehner, Georgia Harbison and Benjamin Nugent/New York, Jeanne McDowell and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles, Karen Ann Cullotta/Chicago and Rachele Kanigel/Walnut Creek