The Scholar, Episode 3: Shake Your Djibouti!

Hello everyone, and welcome to another compelling episode of The Scholar. First order of business – ratings. In its first week The Scholar came in third place in its time slot behind CBS and NBC. Unfortunately, this last week it didn’t do any better, slipping to fourth place behind Michael Jackson specials on first place NBC & third place CBS, and Nanny 911 on second place Fox. So tell all your friends and family to start watching, or at this rate, we may never see a Scholar 2.

As you all may recall, last week I missed the first couple of minutes of The Scholar due to severe weather coverage in my viewing area. As soon as the weather updates were over I tuned into Max and Scot discussing how much money their fathers’ made. They compared their fathers’ salaries with the scholarship money they could earn. At the time I thought they were referring to the $240,000 full-ride scholarship awarded to the winner of the show. However, I’d like to thank all of the people who emailed me to inform me that I did indeed miss something important in the first couple of minutes. Apparently Max and Scot were referring to the $50,000 Wal-Mart Scholarship awarded to the winner of each episode. This would mean that Max’s dad makes under $50,000 a year, and Scot’s dad makes under $18,000 a year. This is a significant difference from the amount I noted last week, and it does seem to legitimize the competition for these two.

Other points of interest. I received an email from one of the show’s producers and co-creators, Jaye Pace. I asked for her permission to reprint her email, since I felt it addresses some of the concerns I’ve had about this show, and she has graciously allowed me to do so. Here’s the relevant text:

I wanted to respond to your statements regarding the financial background of these kids and clear up what seems to be a common misconception. I'm one of the producers and co-creators of the show, and when we were casting these students we required that they fill out the financial aid forms that I formerly used when I was an admission officer at Columbia University. We then calculated, using the federal financial aid formula, an estimate of what these students could expect to receive from the federal government in scholarships, grants, and loans. As you may or may not be aware, the federal government reduced the amount of aid for which a student can qualify by an average of $6,000/yr, and all of the students on the show represent a different economic status effected by the current financial aid formula...

... When we were casting for The Scholar our aim was to make a difference in the lives of the students on the show and to also inspire those watching to go after their dreams whatever they may be. If you want to go to college, you can find a way, but I believe that students should be able to attend ANY college to which they are admitted w/out the burden of having to consider cost or taking on student loans. Intellect and talent should determine where a student decides to attend, not finances, and that's the message I hope to get out to government and educators.

I felt this summed up the financial situation of the students quite well. And while I still think that some of the students’ families may have enough money to send their children to college without financial aid (*cough*Davis*cough*), I also understand that it would likely disrupt their current means of living, an adaptation that can be difficult for some families.

I still haven’t heard back from ABC concerning the faulty results of the “cow” challenge in the first episode. However, I have received a response to that query from Jaye Pace as well. She relays the information from the puzzle creators that Team Red’s solution required moving two pieces, plus an additional “move” of flipping the cow. I know. I don’t buy it either. I find it much more likely that the puzzle creators never considered Team Red’s solution beforehand and came up with an excuse to cover their blunder. At any rate, I’d like to thank Ms. Pace for sharing with us and clarifying some of my questions.

Now, on to the show. We open with Francine the RA calling everyone in the house to come downstairs in their PJ’s for a house party. She has them write questions on pieces of paper which she will read and ask everybody. Questions will remain anonymous, so we might get some interesting stuff here.

First question – Who would you hook up with? Melissa jumps on this one, saying that when she first arrived it was Jeremy. But she’s really competitive, and he didn’t give her a run for the money, so now she’ll go with Davis or Max instead. I’ve got to say, that’s just cold. She totally dissed Jeremy there, especially since Davis didn’t really give her any more of a run for her money than Jeremy did. Of course, this just makes me want to root for Jeremy that much more to prove her wrong.

Second question – Name the hottest body part on everyone here. Max tells Alyssa it’s her eyes, and I tell Max that he is such a player. (Why do I get the feeling that Max wrote that question, just so he could hit on the women?) He keeps going and says that Melissa has a nice booty. Actually, Gerald chimes in with the booty comment before Max finishes, but Max gets the benefit of the compliment as Melissa replies that Max is just “plain sexy.”

In an interview, Alyssa says that she wants to be with Max, but if he wants to be with Melissa, more power to him. I quickly check the TV Guide Channel to make sure I didn’t accidentally tune in to The Fifth Wheel by mistake.

The Captain’s Quiz is up next. Liz shares that there’s more pressure on the quiz now, because at the end of this challenge, they’ll be over halfway to the Final Five. Alyssa likewise is worried that she hasn’t shined yet.