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by R.J. Carter Published: January 4, 2007
I also like to throw movie quotes into regular conversation whenever possible. Beyond that, against staggering odds -- I over-married. And I'm not just saying that to earn brownie points with the wife. And no, I'm not going to post her picture to prove it -- you're just going to have to take my word for it. So I can empathize with the cast of eight geeks recruited by the producers of Beauty and the Geek for this third season. I know where they're coming from, what they're talking about, and exactly what they're feeling -- and anticipating -- knowing they're going to get to spend some serious, quality one-on-one time with a beautiful girl, no matter how vacuous and vapid she is intended to be. And, let's be honest, that's exactly the kind of girl the producers are looking for to fill out the flip side of this ensemble. Producer Ashton Kutcher must've had a great time... convincing Demi that his casting couch was for strictly business purposes, that is. So for the next two hours, let's bring out the Trekkers and Flirts, the experts at pi and the cutie pies, and see what the special twist is the producers promise is coming. The geeks arrive in a parade of scooters, and the viewers are treated to audition clips wherein we learn how the geeks view women, in metaphors using Star Trek, quantum physics, video games, computer operating systems, and songs about "Star Wars". The beauties, on the other hand, arrive in a luxurious stretch limo. JennyLee is a U.F.C. ring girl. Andrea is a pageant queen. Erin is a voice teacher, so instantly she's my blind choice for being the smartest of the crew. Tori is a model. Nadia is a sorority girl and former high school cheerleader. Sheree is Hooters waitress, and Cecille is a bikini model. And Megan... Megan is a Playboy model. Yes, a Playboy model. I'm putting up money that says the geeks congregated around the PC later that night and did what many guys with Internet connection do. It's not by chance that you can re-interpret the ubiquitous search engine's name as "go ogle" without changing the spelling. MC Mike announces that $250,000 is the prize being chased before he lets the two groups get a "fly-by" glance at each other, prior to selecting teammates. The catch this year? You won't be looking at the candidate when he or she comes in the room, you'll only listen and ask questions. Looks won't enter the equation, at least on the individual level.
During the mix-and-mingle, Megan asks Scooter if his Bermuda shorts outfit is some sort of a costume, while Drew explains to Erin the preferred nuance of trekker to trekkie when she asks him if he saw the film about trekkies. But the biggest education comes from Tori, as Sanjay learns that booty doesn't always mean a pirate's treasure. He shares his newfound knowledge with the rest of the geeks, who are apparently all learning a new word for the day. It's like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood for a new generation. "Can you say booty? I know you can." Sanjay also gives the show its first TMI moment when he announces he doesn't know what booty is because he is a virgin. Hey, the other seven virgins on the show didn't have to make a statement. Don't ask, don't tell, Sanjay! Challenge: Dewey Dare Ask? The first challenge begins the next morning. The setting is a library. The girls' portion of the contest is to pick three random library cards from different card catalog drawers and, using the Dewey Decimal System for library books, locate those books and return them. Inside the books are three tasks for the guys to pull off to help them with their social savvy. Those tasks? 1) Have a stranger rub suntan lotion on their back; 2) get a girl's phone number; and 3) borrow a cell phone and place a call. Yes, if you complete these three tasks, gentlemen, your social savvy will have been increased -- you'll know never to try any of those things with strangers again. Cecille is the first Beauty to locate all three of her books, which sends Nate out into the streets to perform his job. The first thing he does is ask a dude to put the lotion on his back. Use the Force, Nate! I think you may be just a bit unclear on the concept you're meant to be employing. Meanwhile, Andrea gets her three books, sending out Matt with a thirty second deficit. Like half a minute is going to be such a huge lead to have to make up. Soon Scooter is out the door. Then Mario. Everyone's going out except Sanjay, because Tori is completely perplexed. She can't find her books at all, and she's in absolute tears about it, as Sanjay looks on helplessly. Nate and Piao both get lotion rubbed on their backs, by women old enough to be their grandmothers. I think Nate actually found a nurse. Scooter, meanwhile, gets a girl's phone number by promising to never call it. Soon it's a race between Scooter and Nate to borrow a phone and make the call to MC Mike. It's Nate by a hair, which makes Cecille do the happy-dance. Meanwhile, Matt is left alone in the streets, looking lost. The "What" Has Been Decided; Now We're Just Quibbling Over Price The champagne celebration back at the library is cut short when MC Mike comes in. While Nate and Cecille have won immunity, there's no one going to be going home tonight... unless they want to. There's going to be a bidding war to determine who can be bought off early. The catch is that it has to be a mutual decision. The teams depart to discuss strategy. Mario and Nadia instantly decide they're staying in -- peer pressure may have forced Nadia to make her choice, but now she really likes Mario, and I see a real friendship starting to form here. Meanwhile, Matt and Andrea aren't so sure, as Andrea berates him about his performance in the last challenge. Matt admits he's not going to get any better at the competitions, so Andrea thinks they should take the money and run. The teams reunite, with each team tandemly holding onto a baton. MC Mike starts rattling off numbers until one team drops the baton they're holding onto. He starts at $5000. $10,000. Andrea's thinking about it at $15,000. He makes it to $20,000 -- his final offer -- and as he's about to close the auction, Andrea asks for one more minute. But ultimately, even though her hand loosens on the baton, she decides to stick it out with Matt. During the social interactions that night, Cecille starts to flirt with Matt, Andrea's partner, making cutesy sounds and faces. She's bored, and she just wants somebody to play dress-up with. So she applies his makeup and puts him in curlers. But that's not enough. She then takes him to the kitchen to show him off to the rest. Andrea is aghast, thinking it will lower his self esteem even further. He is her partner, after all. But Matt is focused on the silver lining; while everyone else was downstairs in the kitchen, he was the only one upstairs alone with a girl. Dreams do come true, it seems. Comedy is Serious, but the News is Funny! The next two part challenge begins the next morning. The Beauties are asked to bone up on their current events, as well as a provided book, because they're going to do an anchor desk interview with an author about economics. The guys, on the other hand, will have to go before a crowd and deliver a stand-up comedy routine! The girls are off to bone up on world events and study, study, study, with their partners' help. Meanwhile, the guys also practice their walkouts, stance, and introductions (as well as their jokes). Matt plans to use some of his favorite pickup lines learned in Math Club: "I wish you were sine squared and I was cosine squared, so together we could be one." I think the number of Matt's relationship are probably comparable to the square root of -1. Meanwhile, Drew is taking advice on his presentation style, Piao is confident in his standup routine, and husky Super Mario works out his lines about his attempts at the Atkins diet. ("Me and Atkins go together like Tom Cruise and sanity. Like Paris Hilton and singing. Like Britney Spears and parenting.") Sounds like somebody is pop culture savvy. Tori, who did so exceedingly bad at finding her books in the last competition, decides the best preparation she can do now is... go to sleep early. She's the first to bed, much to Sanjay's chagrin, and he's certain she hasn't studied at all. The Geeks get to perform their portion of the competitionn first this time, and we're off to the Laugh Factory for "The Beauty and the Geek Standup Comedy Showdown." Drew goes first, and leads off with three "uhm"s and repeats his name twice. He's a starship without shields, but Erin is still proud of hiim for putting himself out there. Megan is worred about Scooter's routine, which is about all the things humanity has accomplished in the last few hundred thousand years -- like genocide and spam. But it's Piao who believes he has unlocked the key to good comedy. It's obviously vulgarity. "Do you know what good P**** is?" he asks one stone-faced gentleman of the audience. "You'll have to let me know, because I don't." The routine gets bleeped. Sheree is apalled. He later asks her if she thinks they'll win, and she's utterly speechless. "Star Wars" band singer Nate then delivers a pretty clever monologue about allergies, and how if it were up to him he'd fix them so people were allergic to big scary things instead of little useless things. "Uh oh. A rash. There's a tiger somewhere. My nose is running -- where's that shark? Oh, I've got a rash too... must be a tiger shark." He did great! Much better than Matt, who recites a string of "What do you call..." riddles, and better than Niels, whose routine focuses on his favorite thing about L.A. -- that being, boobs. Sanjay's routine is too awkward for words. Thankfully, Super Mario follows him, and delivers a pretty funny routine about videogame addiction and dating. For my money, this competition is between Nate and Mario. And with 86% of the votes from the audience, Jedi Nate wins this competition. He and Cecille had already earned immunity, but now they get to actively select one of the teams to be nominated for expulsion. From here, we're whisked off to the newsrooms of WBATG (not a real station) where the girls will play anchorwoman and interview Stephen Dubner, co-author with Steven Levitt of Freakonomics. Sleeping Beauty Tori gets to go first, and as they prep her she decides that now is the best time to crack open that Freakonomics book. Obviously she's from that school of thought that the best time to study for the quiz is when the teacher is passing it out. When the teleprompter begins, she stares at it vapidly as the words scroll by, realizing too late that, oh, she's supposed to read that out loud? Take two, and she almost recites the "[insert name here]" literally. Maybe taking her tongue ring out will help, she thinks. Well, okay, if it's pinching off a major blood vessel to the brain, go for it. Fortunately, her deep perusal of the book yielded one word that had to have been the crux of the topic -- parenting -- and that's where she focuses all of her questions. Sanjay is not happy, and compares watching her performance to being forced to watch an entire season of Will & Grace. The word "enigmatic" in the teleprompter intro throws just about everyone. Megan comes up with a "hard question" for the author -- hard for him and just about any other economist to answer, because it had nothing to do with economics! But let me devote a paragraph to Hooters waitress Sheree. Because after delivering hot wings, this girl has a future in broadcasting. Oh my Lord, she read the book! She pronounces "enigmatic" correctly! The author is impressed, as are the judges. Sheree is definitely pulling Piao's fat out of the fire with this performance. JennyLee gives a powerful smile-and-nod, ending with the perfunctory, "I find that fascinating." Cecille focuses on the meaning of names -- apparently a sub-topic right after "parenting". And Erin can't talk to economics so she compliments the author's suit. Andrea focuses on the book itself -- not its contents, just the book: "When did you think you would create a best seller?" She bails early. Nadia is the second girl to get "enigmatic" without tripping on her tongue. She also asks about gasoline prices, and feeds off the author's responses. It apparently worked, and she comes off with a polished and professional delivery. Mario gushes over her performance, and she deserves it. But when the judges deliver their decision between Sheree and Nadia, it could only be Sheree, much to Cecille's surprise. The judges -- actual broadcasters -- even tell her she could come work with them any time. However, the other teams should take note: Mario placed strongly in the comedy, and his partner Nadia placed strongly in the interview. The other teams have all been pulled ahead by the work of only half their teams. When it's time to work together, we're going to see Mario and Nadia pull ahead with some serious horsepower. Sanjay worries that Tori is lazy when it comes to studying, and he asks her how he can help her. But she's not happy that he didn't compliment her performance during the interview, or support her during the book search competition. Sanjay apologizes, and it's obvious this is a team that should have dropped the baton when they had the chance. Tori claims she has the right to get some rest, and not have to "think and learn every stinkin' minute." She can't even be near Sanjay right now, because her feelings are just too hurt. Process of Elimination: Nate and Cecille select Sanjay and Tori for elimination. Sheree and Piao pit them against Erin and Drew (who shows up wearing his ST:TNG uniform, with four pips on the collar.) The women will be tested on current events, while the men will be asked about what makes women laugh (besides Geeks trying to pick them up.) Sanjay and Tori pack up. Tori isn't even comfortable asking Sanjay for help studying, and Sanjay is assured that if they win tonight it will be because he carried all the weight. Finally, it's quiz time. The rules are easy: the team with the most right answers gets to stay in the game. Ladies first: Tori thinks the next Presidential election is in 2006. Erin knows the Japanese unit of currency. Tori doesn't know the abbreviation NYSE. Erin knows one of the co-authors of Freakonomics. (Ironically, she doesn't name the author she actually met and interviewed.) With the score 2-0, Sanjay has to get all his questions right, and Drew only needs to get one. Unfortunately, Sanjay has never heard of Everybody Hates Chris, so it's over almost before it's begun. Drew and Erin get to stay, and nobody has to see Tori cry any more. Drew gentlemanly opens the door for Erin, while Sanjay and Tori let the news of their failure sink in. That's the big two-hour opening. Come back next week as we see how our remaining mismatched couples fare in this social experiment. |
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