WWTBAM Bored

The episode begins where last week ended, with kids congratulating Kennedy for winning the gold star. But, suddenly, the mature, responsible Green District kids are bragging and showing off. Since their team has won four of the eight gold stars so far, they're calling themselves the "Gold District". Others are not happy...

Then it 's time for a reading of The Book, which addresses the subject of some not working as hard as others. The suggested solution: Mix up the teams! Hey, this isn't Survivor, with alliances that need to be shattered!

But the Town Council always heeds The Book, so they discuss what to do.

Anjay (Blue District) wants a challenge, so he offers to take lazy Emilie from the ranks of the extras to get her to shape up.

Guylan (Red District) decides his team needs an intellectual (huh!?) so he takes Nathan, the hard working, socially-challenged kid who won the gold star two episodes ago.

Zach (Yellow District) knows his younger team needs muscle, so he takes Blaine.

Laurel (Green District) says that her team is perfect, so she refuses to swap anyone, despite the protestation of the others.

The law is passed down to the town, which takes it poorly. Nathan doesn't want to leave his friend, Alex. Jared says Nathan is weird and sings in his sleep! (We're shown a brief nighttime shot in which an unidentified source of singing is heard. Surely, this subject requires more attention! ) The Red District takes note of the implied insult to their intelligence. Everyone else is upset that the Green team didn't have to switch anyone.

And most of all...Superhero/Supervillain Greg is outraged that he's losing his sidekick!

Blaine, however, isn't too upset to leave the sidekick role behind. Away from Greg's shadow, he realizes he can be a superhero, too! And so he gives his new team wake-up calls, so they can fight their "lazy team" image, and he leads them to victory in the Pointless Challenge.

And we're also introduced to Hunter, who, though he's been one of the anonymous extras until now, has also been a conscientious, hard worker, so we're now told. Hunter tries to calm nerves by holding another voluntary prayer service (the first we've seen since that was the subject of episode 4).

The Pointless Challenge deserves special mention this week, for some delightful subtlety. The showdown challenge was to...drag some rocks. Each team had a sledge to fill with cobblestone-sized rocks that they must drag across an obstacle course, first across the finish line becoming the Upper Class, etc. The twist was that each team could load as many or few rocks as they liked (with fences obscuring the view of what the other teams chose) but, in order for the town to win the reward, a total of one ton of rocks had to be dragged to the finish line! And no going back for extras once they've started. This set up an interesting dilemma: be selfish and drag a light sledge or serve the town by dragging a heavier load at your own expense?

The Yellow District won, with the timely assistance from Blaine for this most physical challenge to date. Red comes in last, resigned to pulling a heavy load for the good of the town. But all four teams end up short of their 500 lb. share, so there's no reward for the second week in a row.

But the truly interesting point that wasn't verbalized on the show was that, while they had a scale at the finish line, they did not have one at the start! Each team was estimating their 500 lb. fair share by eye and did a remarkably consistant job doing so, with loads being measured at 480, 460, 420 and 485 lbs each. I doubt if adult teams could do any better, under the circumstances.

So, challenge over, we get to the Town Meeting. Randi is homesick and decides to leave, saying "I have a life at home and I don't have one here." Talent Agent translation: "I've been in this dump for 27 days and this is the first line you let me say on air? WTF?"

The town seems divided on giving Hunter or Blaine the gold star, but the well-know ex-sidekick edges out the promising newcomer.

But then comes the most delicious part of the show. Our forgettable host asks how many people are happy with the Town Council. Last time this was asked, there was 100% approval. This week, the only one to raise his hand is Blaine, still holding that $20,000 gold star they just gave him. Everyone else is unhappy!

Okay, then, it's time for another round of elections. Who wants to run against the incumbents? DK challenges Guylan. Greg challenges Anjay, having just earlier delivered the withering insult, "Mallory [one of the nine-year old girls] is more of a man than you are!". Blaine challenges Zach! (Et tu, Blaine?) And the final challenge: Michael stands against hitherto beloved Laurel!!!

The election is to be held next week, but now we have the wonderful situation of four gold star winners standing against the council that gave them those endorsements of their value to the town. What could be better?

Just one thing, I think. Time for the challengers to adopt a new and important campaign motto:

BURN THE BOOK!

Correction to the above: The Blue District became the new Upper Class, with the Yellow District as the Merchants. Wikipedia has a nice table summarizing the results of each episode.




Right. Like anyone cares.

It's too bad that they can't burn the show. I haven't watched the show, but do you think that the producers created the book as a plot driving device?

Editing seems to have been fairly uneven through out this series. I doubt the greens were as angelic as they had been portrayed to this point or as evil as they suddenly appeared in this episode. Sophie or whomever it was who dropped the F bomb on Guylan would seem to support that.

Too bad that can't award the gold star with the caveat that you can also lose it for poor behavior later on. Greg would lose his for his antics in the district trading were I the benevolent dictator.

Blaine got good marks from me for recognizing his opportunity. But he could have helped out had he had a word with Greg to make him see the light as well (and maybe he did off air since Greg cooled off fairly quickly).

The town counsel continues to do a miserable job of explaining and defending their actions, or at least it never makes the light of TV day if they do. If they had tried to better explain why they were trading kids to try to help the town as a whole, especially Anjay who is truly miserable at defending himself, it might have gone over better.

The town counsel ought to be happy to get the boot since those running all have gold stars and they aren't likely to get ones themselves unless they become good little worker bees. Based on what they have said in the past both Guylan and Anjay should not campaign at all and should support their opposition.

I would get up and say this job is hard, you a**holes question everything we try to do and I am happy to give the job to somebody else so they can learn for themselves how miserable it can be!

And just once I'd like to see some more creative response from the council. (Laurel's refusal to change her team was the most blatant opposition, to date.) People living in a bunkhouse in 1885 would be hired hands for a particular ranch; the answer to someone not working would be to fire them, not to work out a trade with another ranch. OTOH, those in the more properous classes would make their own arrangements to rent a room or buy their own house, according to circumstances. If they have to stick to the bunkhouse theme for convenience but can't kick anyone out of town, why not ask the townfolks if anyone is unhappy with their circumstances and want to try a different district?

And speaking of burning the show, I wonder how many of the kids watch Survivor? Aside from whatever undisclosed whimper of an ending TKNPTB have planned before everyone just goes home, it'd be funny if the kids followed the Survivor precedent of burning down the town before leaving!