The Big Brother-esque program, created by Prima TV to compete with the real Big Brother on TV Nova for the fall season, has undergone more crises in the past week than any producer could have hoped for.

A live World War II bomb was discovered near enough to the Prague 9 villa in which the show's contestants live to cause an evacuation Nov. 19, but this event turned out to be just a foreshadowing of the suspense-filled scenes to come.

At 5 a.m. the following morning, a phalanx of 40 security guards with dogs arrived at the Harfa district broadcasting studios and house to evict the cast and Prima TV employees.

Kralupy Distillery, the landlord that claims Prima TV was months behind in the rent for the land on which the villa stands, ordered the eviction, according to Prima officials. Martin Dvořák, the station's general manager, said he was shocked by Kralupy Distillery's act, countering that Prima was only days behind and blaming the late rent for what he termed technical reasons.

"In the civilized world it is common to solve these types of problems in court," said Dvořák, adding that the station will take legal action. "We will ask for tens of millions in compensation from the owner."

Prokop Beneš, an attorney for Kralupy Distillery, countered that Prima had been asked repeatedly to vacate the property.

Whatever the cause, with a nationally promoted prime time show's cast suddenly homeless in the middle of the season, Prima's management was swift to improvise a solution with the assistance of Milan Kňažko, director of the Slovak station JOJ. The VyVolení cast was promptly sent to join their counterparts on that country's version of the show.

How this will affect the show's rules, which call for contestants to remain in the house constantly for months, cut off from the outside world, is unclear, but Prima insists the viewer voting system will remain in place. Under the premise of both Big Brother and VyVolení, TV audiences should be only people empowered to evict contestants, and then only one at a time.

Kralupy Distillery, which apparently didn't feel compelled to follow the rulebook, was accused of trying to cash in on the show's success by Prima, which issued a statement suggesting the landlord had demanded huge rent increases after the program became a hit.

The eviction and bomb scare are only the latest troubles for VyVolení, which has been fined by the Czech broadcasting council for excessive profanity and nudity during prime time, a penalty that could involve millions of crowns. TV Nova's Big Brother faces similar fines, but VyVolení's crass cast has apparently been more popular with audiences, winning consistently better ratings.

One VyVolení castmember's odd expression, "To je fičák," has been picked up by so many youthful viewers that the station has registered a copyright for the phrase, according to the weekly Týden, since it does not appear in any Czech dictionary.

Prima has been sued, however, by Czech Online, owner of the www.volny.cz Web site, for infringing on its copyright for using the name VyVolení, a registered trademark of the leading Internet firm.

The No. 2 private broadcaster also faces a lawsuit by Endemol, the Dutch company that created the Big Brother concept, over allegedly patterning VyVolení too closely after the Big Brother model.