Some weeks ago, the remaining residents on the CBS reality show "Big Brother" contemplated walking out en masse. They were mad about the seemingly capricious ordeals the show producers were putting them through, and irritated by the producers' obvious attempts to introduce conflict into their obstinately comity-minded household.

The subject was dropped -- until early Saturday morning, when the residents made a pact to walk off the show on this Wednesday's live episode.

The plan was shown on the 24-hour live Internet camera feeds from the house.

In other words, the dry run for the Revolution of the Houseguests has turned into the real thing -- unless CBS can, or wants to, abort it.

George, the affable middle-aged roofer, is at the center of the crisis. Each week, two or more of the residents of the house are up for banishment, by audience vote, via 99-cent phone calls. Two weeks ago, CBS made a special trip to his home town of Rockford, Ill., to show a tavern and a phone company teaming up to offer free calls to vote out another resident, the zany "cuddle slut," Brittany.

Brittany was indeed voted out that week.

Some viewers, outraged at the Rockford plot, raised money to fly planes with banners over the household to warn the residents dark deeds were afoot.

On last Wednesday's show, Brittany, allowed to talk to one house resident for a few moments, told her chief cuddle partner, a stolid jock named Josh, that George's town was targeting residents. "It's mean out there," she squealed.

Josh, not wanting it to get mean in the house, kept this information to himself -- to the frustration of his housemates.

A reporter in Rockford pretty much established that the calls from Rockford would probably not have affected the result; sources at CBS told him that Brittany outpolled George by some 20,000 votes.

Still, another plane flew over the house Friday: "Josh knows why we fly anti-George banners," the message said.

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