Episode 5

Beauty and the Geek 3, Episode 5: Tool, Wood, Nailed by Dale Sherman -- 02/01/2007 Jennylee & Niels beat the Elimination Room last week, but it is anyone’s game this week is the two teams that don’t win the challenges have to automatically go to the Elimination Room at the end of the show! Who fails to win ANOTHER request for phone-numbers? Who fails to build a doghouse sturdy enough to, well, have it be called a real doghouse? This week’s Geek Peek of the Week is a little more mainstream than our usual fare, being that of a popular action-oriented television series now available on DVD. I’m not talking about Lost or 24, however, but rather Get Smart! This series was created in the 1960s by two famous comedy writers – would’ja believe Mel Brooks and Buck Henry – and featured the great, though sadly typecast after this role, Don Adams as Secret Agent Maxwell Smart. The show ran for five years on the networks and parodied just about every action-adventure movie or television series available, from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to The Avengers and of course the Bond series. The last major appearance of the series was back in the 1990s when TV Land repeated the show. That led to a rather miscalculated comeback series called Get Smart Again that ran for a few weeks on FOX (just like everything else). Adams and his co-star Barbara Feldon seemed up to the task, but the series was centered on a pretty weak performance by Andy Dick that sunk ratings more than their slot on the schedule. After that, the series seemed to just disappear from the airwaves and fans wondered when or if the show would ever see the light of day on DVD. Fortunately, HBO and Time-Life decided to release the series on DVD in season sets back in 2006, with a heavy load of extras (ads, bloopers, award show appearances, promotional tie-ins, etc.) and commentaries from many of the participants (sadly, all too late to get anything from Adams, who passed away in 2005). Best of all, Time-Life decided to release all five boxsets at the same time; thus, fans could either buy them one at a time or all five seasons at once. Nice way to go for those who get frustrated in waiting months for each season of their favorite shows to come out on DVD. Definitely worth a re-visit for those that remember it as the series has held up remarkably well. Another thing holding up remarkably well is Beauty and the Geek in the ratings. Considering the trouble all the other networks have in programming shows opposite “the Death Star” American Idol, CW is still happy with how their little reality show is doing (albeit, maybe wondering why they don’t move it to another time where ratings could be even better). Sure, last week saw the show at 1.3. But when even CBS is getting a 1.4, CW didn’t have to sweat it too much. Sweating is one thing that is starting to happen on Beauty and the Geek, however, as four teams are now gone and only four teams remain. Last week saw Jennylee & Niels beat Erin & Drew in the Elimination Room after being sent there by Cecille. Yes, just Cecille, as Nate cowered in a corner and let Cecille make the decision for them as a way to get “payback” from Niels for making her (yes, just her, really) go to the Elimination Room in the episode before that. When the two arrive upstairs, Nate is elated to see Jennylee and states in an interview that he realized how much he liked her. Next we see Nate and Jennylee sitting in a room, K-I-S-S… uh… vroom, vroom, vroom. Oh, never mind. Anyway, they’re just being all touchy-feely, really. Having cameras all over recording your every move would probably make you less inclined to do more than that anyway. Unless you’re Cecille, of course (as we found out in Episode Two). Nate tells Jennylee that she makes him feel good and Jennylee tells the camera in an interview that she hopes to get Nate to feel more comfortable as more time passes. Next day, the eight remaining con-*test*-('")ants arrive in the room to meet Master Spy Mike Richards. He tells them that, since they have all gotten to know their teammate, it was time to “shake things up.” This was to be done by adding a player to each team and immediately a few people are a little worried. Okay, really just Cecille. She feels that if they bring back any of the previous con-*test*-('")ants they would be immediately gunning for her and she would be in trouble. In this case, thinking of just herself is probably true, as there’s never been any discussion of people having a problem with her partner Nate. Fortunately for Cecille, the “partners” turn out to be four dogs. A slobbering dog name Winston, a Chihuahua named Cassandra, a Daschund named Lezzy, and a Golden Retriever named Trapper. Trapper nearly knocks over the table and seems to want to be friends with everyone (even pushing Jennylee over at one point). Master Chef Mike Richards tells them that the teams will each get a dog and the guys will have to then use the dog as part of… oh, no… ANOTHER “get phone numbers from girls” challenge?! Seriously, isn’t there something else these guys can do to help show their social skills? Evidently if you’re not a geek then you spend every waking moment getting phone numbers of women who are so sad that they’re willing to hand out phone numbers to strange guys doing goofy things. The world must be in pretty bad shape if this is the best we can present as social skills. How’s about something that is actually stimulating to dealing with people of the opposite sex? Here are a few ideas: Work with women in a fashion store for a couple of hours and the guy who sells the most wins. Do the dog-event by having the guys wash dogs that belong to women going through the park. With $100, buy a gift that the geek’s partner would love. Have the items placed in a room unmarked and see if the girls can figure out which one is for them. Take the guys out for a class in traditional dance. Have them come back and teach their partner what they learned and then have them perform in front of judges. The best pair wins. I mean, look – these ideas aren’t the grea-*test*-('"), but it took me the space of four minutes to come up with them and they are all clearly better than another “who can I sucker into giving me bogus phone numbers and prove that I can nag people?” If it has to be done, at least limit it to once a season. Twice is just too much. Anyway, the girls have to take a tool-chest and are told that they will need to build a dog domicile. Megan asks what a domicile is. My wife, watching with me, helpfully shouts out, “It’s a house, dumbass!” She then leaves the room, swearing the women have to be saying these things just so the producers will have footage of them looking stupid. I think it was just a silly misunderstanding, however. Megan then states that she should do well with the toolkit as she’s “a super screwer.” Well… uh… well… maybe my wife was catching on to something here after all. The con-*test*-('")ants head upstairs with their toolkits and dogs. Cecille loves the Chihuahua, although she doesn’t understand why the dog is pooping on the floor and looks frightened. Megan has Lezzy and thinks it would be cute to put perfume on the dog, which Scooter immediately cuts down. Bad enough he has to go talking to women he doesn’t know and get phone numbers; having a dog that smell like perfume isn’t going to help attract the ladies. Megan backs off, proving she’s may not know what domicile is, but does know when her partner speaks the truth. She offers to do something about the dog’s breath, but Scooter turns that down as well. Meanwhile, Mario wonders if he should use mouthwash on his slobbering dog. Although Megan figures that any personal products developed on animals should be safe to use on the dogs, she really should be careful, as should Mario. Some mouthwashes have boric acid in it, which can hurt the dogs, and they might have been best in at least mentioning that the whole idea of giving human mouthwash to dogs is not only possibly dangerous, but dogs tend to really find the odor of mouthwash terrible and will avoid it. Thus, just trouble all around. Speaking of trouble with the dogs, Cecille decides, as one would expect, to toy with her dog by putting a bunch of bracelets over the dog’s head. She then can’t get them off. Nate comes in to find the dogs with multiple bracelets around her neck and puts his foot down. Cecille attempts to take them off, nearly ripping the dog’s head off at the same time because the bracelets won’t come off as easily as they went on. Nate forces her to stop and, using some pliers, cuts the bracelets off while trying to calm the little dog down. Cecille watches in sheer boredom, not understanding why everyone was acting like “two-year-olds” because of what she was doing. Nate goes on the record in an interview to say that Cecille “doesn’t think of other people or things.” The only things that matter to her, Nate says, is what makes her happy, and that was the last thing he wanted right now. Niels is worried about the challenge, as he got a lot of negative reactions when he had to do the SAME THING, minus a dog, during the library challenge. He tries out some lines with Jennylee that he thought would work and she tells him that they would just make a woman want to get away from him as soon as possible. Later, Master Golf Mike Richards meets the couples at a dog park. The guys will have time to walk around with the dogs and try to get phone-numbers from women. Meanwhile, the beauties will watch with little mini-television sets and listen in on how they are doing. Scooter is a bit nervous about Megan watching his every move, as he is worried about how she will criticize his attempt at the challenge. Nate stands around with Cassandra in his hand and essentially looks like a stalker. Niels has Winston and tries out a line on a woman about finding a Starbucks. Jennylee said that it wouldn’t work, but Niels proves that he can get something out of it – directions! No phone-number, but at least he didn’t get a knee to the groin, so it’s all good. Jennylee is livid that he went with the line, however. Mario has the friendliest dog in the world with him and he spends his time ignoring the dog and trying to interrupt joggers for some reason. Evidently having strange men trying to stop your training so he can ask you for a phone number you don’t want to give out is something every woman dreams about. Scooter is at least talking to people, but they seem to be old ladies. Well, no age-limit was mentioned, and if he looks like a good boy, maybe some motherly women would give out a number. Worth a shot and better than tripping up joggers anyway. When Nate sees that Mario is starting to get numbers, he feels that a fire has been lit under him and he has to get cracking. Mario sees that Nate is starting to form a group around him and heads over to borrow a few phones from the women Nate was chatting up as well. The two end up neck-to-neck with five numbers each when they head down to the wire by going after a few more women. Meanwhile, Scooter tries out his Russian with a couple of women and it gets him into a conversation. They don’t want to give him their numbers, however. As for Niels, it is obvious that he hates every second of the challenge and feels sad for the dog being stuck in it with him as well. In the end, it is announced that Nate wins with seven numbers. And what did we learn from this? Well, mostly that the dogs really didn’t make any difference, even though Nate thought it helped him about 50% of the time. Actually, the footage shows that seeing Mario getting numbers is what got him motivated, not the dog in his arms. Meanwhile, none of the others used their dogs to any advantage, so they might as well have had lamps in their hands for the entire challenge with as much good the dogs did. If one of them really wanted to make good use of their dog, they should have let go of their leash and made them run off. Then the geek could have started running after the dog, while shouting for the women to help him catch it. Break the ice by catching the dog and then exchanging numbers to keep an eye out for each other’s dog in case it gets loose. Or, if not that, at it would AT LEAST break the ice better than, “hey, look at this mutt; now give me your number!” Back at the mansion, Jennylee doesn’t get entirely irate, but she is clearly not happy with Niels just wandering around and not partaking of the challenge very well. Niels tells her that he felt dirty asking for phone numbers like that and frankly I think he’s right to feel that way. Not everyone wants to go about getting numbers from strangers like that, even if it is for a game-show. It does nothing to point out the social challenge of the show and has become very tiresome after three seasons. Niels also tells her that he is tired of having her second-guess him all the time and then leaves the room. In a happier place of the house, Scooter works with Megan on putting nails into wood and explaining how the tools should be used. Elsewhere, the others work from drawings, which probably isn’t as good of a way as physically working with the material is for Megan. When the time comes, the girls arrive to see Funkmaster Mike Richards with the owner of the shop they will be doing the dog houses, Doug Jeffrey. The women have one hour and are given everything they need to build a dog house and paint it up, with the judging to be based on stability, decorating and craftsmanship of the houses. None of them get off to a flying start until Cecille gets the idea to use double-back tape to hold the pieces together. That’s when the others start gluing pieces together first before nailing the pieces and things start coming together. With the training Megan had beforehand with Scooter, she whips through hers easily, while Jennylee has to struggle some more but gets things looking good as well. Although Cecille had a bright idea at the start, she sticks with just the tape to hold the house together and then uses a piece of cloth to cover the top instead of the actual roof that was given to her to use. The women bring the houses outside for their partners to see and the judge to reveal who he thought did the best job. Cecille’s is first and it looks like something six-year-old would make after seeing a John Waters movie. Nate refers to it as a “doggy bordello.” The judge isn’t impressed with the craftsmanship and mentions that it certainly was not stable with just the tape holding it together. Cecille fights back by claiming it was a $100 house and the judge didn’t know what he was talking about. Ignoring all this, the judge looks at Nadia and compliments. Then he looks at the house she built, and -- No, sorry, he just looks at Nadia’s house and compliments it. Nadia feels good about that, because she thought she had done a terrible job with the house even after Mario saw it and told her it was fine. Jennylee gets very good compliments about her house as well, but it was ultimately Megan who wins, having not only built a good house, but even went so far as to use the shingles on the roof (which really is a good feature for any dog house like this). Megan says later that she was happy to finally win a challenge and it was probably due to not having to talk, as she believes she is smarter when she doesn’t have to talk. Hey, at least it makes up for earlier comments she made on the show, so good for her. What this all means is that Mario & Nadia will be facing Jennylee and Niels in the Elimination Room. Nate and Jennylee realize that they may only have a few others left together so they get together to talk. Nate finally breaks out the idea of doing something he had wanted to do with Jennylee for some time. Evidently it had something to do with listening to music, because we hear a lot of it as they sit in a room, K-I-S-S - … oh, forget it. Niels is worried about the Elimination Room because he figures there will be questions about “chick flicks” and “Mario really knows movies!” Jennylee is also worried because she thinks Nadia is better at remembering things from the studying they have to do. Nate sits with Niels and Jennylee for a time, helping them out, as he doesn’t want Jennylee to leave. Niels knows that he and Jennylee aren’t on the same level of communication they used to be, but they try to push that all aside so they can study. In the Elimination Room, Master Ninja Mike Richards is there to start the women off with questions about building and tools. They get both of their questions right. The guys are next with questions about dating. Niels and Mario get their first questions right and Niels follows up fine with his second. Mario, however, misses his second question, making it Mario & Nadia who will have to leave the mansion and the show that night. Both look back at their time in the house as very beneficial, with their friendship becoming one like that of close cousins or brother-sister. Viewers should also remember that this was the team that really didn’t want each other at first. Nadia felt forced into going with Mario because no one else wanted him and there was some minor resentment at first. Thus, these two actually formed a bond that showed how great this program can be at times, with the evidence that people from different backgrounds can find a way to work together while making minor changes in their lives that help them after the show is all over as well. Unfortunately, such lessons learned seem few and far between this season. Next week, it time to go down on the farm, with the guys shifting hay and the girls milking cows.

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