Watchers

Live Stream #273: Uncle Elvis's Elimination Game Conspiracy Hour

It's a few minutes past eight a.m. and the comments section beneath the video feed is becoming increasingly agitated. The test pattern has gone away, but instead of Elvis, all that appears on screen is the last minute of footage from yesterday, looping again and again. A nude, blurred Sasha slugs Edna in the jaw, Edna lunges for her, and Father Gary bellows for her to stop the slaughter. Then the nuns lower the flailing Sasha roughly to the concrete floor.

And again.

And again.

And in the comments, people are wondering where Elvis is. She's never late. Something must be wrong.

Just when they're beginning to circle the wagons, metaphorically speaking, trying to figure out how a group of internet broadcast viewers can possibly take action on Elvis's behalf, the familiar TV test pattern flashes onto the screen and most of the viewers settle down.

Elvis appears on the screen, looking a little bit out of breath. A few crude comments speculate about what must have caused her tardiness, most of which are wink-and-nod variations on, Made a McDonald's run a little too close to air time, eh? Gotta have that Big Mac.

Elvis composes herself and says, "Who was shocked by that thrilling conclusion to my Daniel and Sasha backstory segment?

No one?

Oh, you're all too cynical.

So we know - because I'm sure you've all been following Daniel and Sasha's progress on The Elimination Game, just like the rest of the country - that from here, they end up in the house. In fact, right now they're on the cusp of breaking a record for the longest a couple has lasted together on The Elimination Game. No two contestants who entered the house together have gone six weeks without one of them leaving the house, and far from being eliminated, these two are quickly becoming America's sweethearts.

Now, I would love to give you guys footage that fills the gaps between what we saw yesterday and their arrival in the house, but the sad fact is that there just aren't cameras to give us eyes in those places. Instead, we're left with speculation, so that's exactly what we're going to do today. I'd love to talk about some of the controversies floating around about The Elimination Game, and I want you guys to give me your best conspiracy theories in the comments.

First and foremost, there's that pernicious rumor about what happens to the losing contestants.

We know that poor Ruby Watson - one of the original twelve contestants - was taken away from the house in a body bag, and despite an awful lot of prying by vigilant viewers, we haven't been able to locate a few of the other losing contestants. But no one can prove that they aren't being pampered at spas in Bora Bora, or whatever elaborate parting gifts the producers come up with.

More savvy and cynical viewers like us, however, have our own theories about what befalls losing contestants. So what kind of person volunteers to go on a reality television show where there's at least a halfway credible threat of death, and how do you get cast on The Elimination Game in the first place?

There is an online application for people who find the million-dollar prize to be worth the risk - people who don't mind gambling with their lives - and it would appear that was the source of the show's earliest contestants. But as we've learned from almost a century of reality television, self-selection from the riffraff of society does not often make for excellent television.

Just look at the very first season of The Real World, the grandpappy of all reality television. The people were average, their lives were boring, and if a show like that aired today, there would be rioting in the streets and the Watchers would have a field day.

That's not the type of people we get on the Elimination Game, though, is it? No, we have everything from doctors to porn stars, and every type of personality that makes for fantastic television - loose cannons, whack jobs, criminals, and sycophants. Now that makes good television, and you want to know where I think they're getting these people?

I think what the Elimination Game producers have done is cultivate a network of bounty hunters to track down people who will do well on the show. If they're going to be killing off their contestants every week then they need a revolving door of interesting characters to keep plugging into the house, and not only that, I think the producers are paying these bounty hunters bonuses for bringing in top-notch talent.

Think about it - if your whole goal is to bring in high TV ratings with your reality show, then you have to get people invested in your cast. If you have to let viewers vote off a member of that cast every single week, then you want to bring in two types of people: ones the audience loves, and ones they love to hate. Those are the people who are going to have staying power, and the ones that are going to make your viewers keep tuning in.

So you don't want any old person. The bounty hunters could just be going into the streets, posing as Watchers or johns and targeting the most vulnerable segment of the population - homeless people and prostitutes.

Gee, does that sound like anyone we've come to know and hate?

I think Father Gary wet his clerical robes when he managed to snag Daniel - turning him over to the Elimination Game producers would be one hell of a payday, what with his father's infamy and Daniel's own titillating history of gender confusion, drugs, and the downward spiral into street life.

Sasha, though... I don't think she was part of the plan. I think Father Gary would have been just as happy to let Edna have her way with Sasha if she hadn't woken up in that pivotal moment. Let's take a look."

The screen switches over to yesterday's footage, and the viewers see Father Gary's expression transforming from that of a slobbering wolf at the slaughter into a eureka moment just as he shouts for Edna to stay Sasha's execution. It plays a second time, then switches back to Elvis.

"Look at that unbridled lust," she says. "The scum bag knows exactly what he has the moment Sasha fights back, and he realizes he's been gifted with a rare opportunity to send them both into the Elimination Game house and turn them against each other.

Those are not the actions of a girl who will just lay down and die in the Elimination Game house any more than she was willing to swallow Father Gary's song and dance at the Haven. If anything, she has proven herself to be more of a fighter than Daniel in the house.

So we have an unscrupulous bounty hunter with one of the most elaborate dragnets I've ever seen, a pair of misfits who have been poured from one tank with a clerical collar-wearing piranha into a much bigger tank full of sharks, and the most secretly sinister television show in the world, which half of America is addicted to despite its murderous underbelly.

That's just my theory, anyway.

Stay tuned because you're about to see some exclusive footage I was able to dig up from the Elimination Game archives. This is stuff from the first few weeks of Sasha and Daniel's time in the house that didn't make it to the air."

Elvis adopts an early twenty-first-century news anchor air as she says, "All that is coming up, after a word from our sponsors."

A smile breaks across her face in increments, until she can't hold it in anymore and she's cackling. She says, "Oh, right, no one would sponsor this heretical stuff!"

Then she punches a key on her keyboard, playing the video.