How Badly Do You Want It?: Students Edition
Pilot - Meet The Challengers
Filmed: Sunday, June 5, 2011
Television Air Date: Thursday, October 20, 2011
Gerald Johannsen reclined in his twin sized bed, pulling his blankets up to his waist before searching for the remote. It was almost ten p.m. and time for his soon-to-be new favorite show.
Once he found MTV, Gerald turned the volume up to thirty and patiently waited for the annoying commercials to end.
"Turn that down!" his college roommate hissed from his bed.
"Shut up!" Gerald replied, biting his tongue to keep himself from getting any angrier. He turned the volume up a little more which caused his roommate to storm out the door.
"Tonight on the season premiere of How Badly Do You Want It?: Students Edition," Kip Daniels, a twenty-five year old, six-foot-tall Hispanic action and adventure enthusiast, grinned as he crossed a mysterious beach, "we welcome the ten contenders to their new home in Cancún, Mexico as they compete for their full ride college scholarship to the college of their choice."
Kip continued moving along a paved road, "Over these next ten weeks these ten hopefuls will face obstacles, as well as death, in multiple physical challenges that not only test their strength, but their personal fears and ability to work as a team to solve problems. At the end of each week, two players from the losing team will be put into a sudden death challenge that's randomly picked by the winning team. Let's meet everyone now."
The shot cut to Cancún's International terminal where two girls, both holding pieces of paper, looked around, clearly confused.
The short girl on the left smiled, "Are you with How Badly?"
The brunette giggled in relief, "Yes! Hi, I'm Megan!" She pulled the other girl in for a hug.
"I'm Jenna."
Megan was slim, wearing short jean shorts and high heels to show off the shape of her tanned legs. She was almost six feet in heels and Jenna had to look up almost a foot to make eye contact. Jenna had a blonde pixie cut and fair skin with dark blue eyes hidden behind glasses.
The two girls resumed their walk towards the van, where the driver piled their bags in the trunk. Megan turned to Jenna, "Where are you from?"
"New York. I really want to get this money to go to UCLA."
Megan smiled, "Oh, wow, me too! Except, I'm from Florida." The two girls shared a laugh before falling silent.
The scene quickly cut to when the van's sliding door opened. Two more strangers piled in, this time a boy and a girl.
The boy was fairly attractive, with a faux mohawk gelled into his raven hair and large caramel colored eyes, "I'm Drake."
The African American girl waved, "Sarah."
Everyone exchanged small talk, announcing where they were from and what school they were competing for. Drake was from Boston and needed money to go to Boston College while Sarah was from Colorado and wanted to go to NYU.
Next into the van were twin brothers from Texas, Mark and Jeffery. Both had thick lips, deep tans, curly blond hair and green eyes. The only difference between them was the fact that Mark was wearing a cowboy hat.
"How are we supposed to tell you two apart?" Drew asked.
"I'll always wear the hat," Mark promised, causing the entire car to burst into laughter.
The door rolled open again to reveal a red headed girl and a lean Asian man. "I'm Andrew," he smiled, "and this is Kathy." Everyone waved and made room for the new people to fit in.
"Well, we're just waiting on two more," the driver announced.
Just then a painfully loud scream made the entire van jump.
Sarah was clinging hard onto Drake's arm, nails digging into flesh. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"
The front door to the van opened and everyone screamed in terror.
Arnold flinched, "I'm sorry guys." He ran his fingers over his blond hair, "Our new cast mate is a little upset."
"That noise came from a human being?" Mark gasped.
Gerald burst into laughter at everyone's on screen reactions.
Arnold nodded, "Unfortunately, yes. We just found out that the airline lost her baggage and refuses to help her get it back."
Jeffery turned his eyes to the sky, "Jesus Christ, save me if I ever have to fight her."
"Her name's Helga. I've known her since forever and. . .well, she hates me."
"That's putting it lightly," Gerald said to the monitor.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Great, now we have personal vendetta's on the show."
Arnold smirked and buckled up, "We should leave now unless you all want to be beaten by Betsey and the Five Avengers."
Mark groaned, "Please tell me those aren't her fists."
"Wish I could. By the way, I'm Arnold."
The van all chorused, "Hey Arnold."
Arnold turned to the driver, "Kip said he'd stay with Helga. We're good to go."
The scene then cut to the van rolling up to a large modern-styled mansion with a pool overhanging on the third level like the hotel in Vegas. MTV did a montage of the empty house to show the viewer's every aspect and potential camera angle.
The van door opened, showing everyone freaking out about their new house.
The show went to a three minute commercial break before starting again with the players all running into their respective rooms.
The girls room was all pink with two twin sized beds on one wall and three on the other. Megan and Jenna claimed the two beds on the far side of the wall by the window. Sarah collapsed on the bed against the door while Kathy took the one on the other end, leaving the middle open for Helga. The boy's room had the same set up, only with a gray and blue theme.
The cast met up in the large kitchen that overlooked a cliff that lead to a secluded beach. The dining room was to the left and a living room to the right. The house had a modern Mexican theme, with brightly colored orange and red walls covered with tropical patterns and photographs of ocean front views and Mexican flags.
Jeffery popped his head into the doorway, "Guys, check this out."
Everyone jumped off the counters and followed Jeffery into the living room. A large bike wheel was set up on a stand with alternating black and white spokes. "What the hell is this?"
The camera cut to a blonde girl tapping her foot impatiently against the ground, her face scowling and eyes covered by sunglasses. "God, I am such a f- - - - - -g idiot."
Kip turned to her, "You can't curse on camera, Helga."
"I can do whatever the hell I want to, Kip. And I want to say f- - - because it expresses how I feel right now. I probably look insane to everyone-" Helga threw her arms towards the camera to justify her point. She knew her new cast mates had heard her scream. And Arnold, oh, God, he probably thought she was crazier than her usual angry self.
"You are insane, Helga. That's why you're here."
Helga crossed her arms over her chest and grumbled something about "stupid f- - - - -g airports."
The scene then cut to Helga in the confessional booth. It was a small room with two orange chairs and a ridiculous surfer mural hanging on the wall. A studio light hung above the chairs and a motion- sensitive camera started recording when a sensor was activated.
Helga looked exhausted, with her wet blonde hair tied up into a pony tail and an old t-shirt around her shoulders, "I know I totally overreacted," she laughed, "but I was having the worst day of my life." Helga held up her fingers to count all the ways her day went wrong, "I missed my four a.m. alarm and taxi to the airport, found out our flight was delayed, had to spend three hours in the airport with Mr. Positive Arnold - who drove me absolutely crazy the entire time - and I hadn't eaten anything since the previous day's lunch. I just really wanted to get here, get some food and enjoy our days in Mexico before we had to compete."
Helga and Kip both entered the house, Helga's eyes going wide as she took in the size of the mansion. Kip guided Helga to the living room, setting her down on the couch and telling her to wait. Kip pulled out a small megaphone, "Guys! Roundup!"
Nine teenagers came sprinting into the living room.
"Now that we're all here, I'd like to welcome everyone to How Badly Do You Want It?: Student Edition." The group shared a round of applause. "For the next ten weeks you will be competing as two teams in various challenges order to win points. These points keep you safe from elimination. Now, I'll go over rules tomorrow, so let's pick the teams."
One by one Kip called up everyone to spin the bike wheel. If they landed on a white spoke, they were on the white team, with the same process for black spokes.
Once everyone had been sorted, Kip handed out v-neck t-shirts in the appropriate colors.
"The White Team is now Andrew, Drake, Sarah, Helga and Jenna. The Black Team is Arnold, Jeffery, Mark, Kathy, and Megan. Tomorrow after the first challenge we will pick captains." Kip winked at the camera, "Have a good night guys. We're up at eight a.m. tomorrow."
Cut to a shot of the boys chugging beers and cheering loudly. Everyone was walking around, holding their beers and mingling in their bathing suits. A few of the teens had already paired off, like Mark and Megan, Kathy and Andrew, and Jenna was trying to flirt with Arnold. Arnold tried his hardest not to be rude, so instead of telling her to leave, he simply smiled.
It looked like a normal high school party in someone's house.
Helga and Sarah we sitting in the confessional, giggling and splashing drinks on each other, "The first night is always crazy! We all want to get to know each other and have fun!"
Helga then stood up and pulled on Sarah's arm, "Come on, we're gonna miss the hot tub!"
The camera cut to the black and white Pool Cam, which showed the entire party either naked or in the process of getting naked and into the pool. Arnold, the only sober one, was keeping his eyes focused on the view of the beach.
Arnold's voice over was playing over the squeals of the girls in the pool, "I'm not much of a drinker, whether it's illegal or not. It's just never really appealed to me. I guess I'm the only one who felt that way."
Mark was now sitting in the confessional booth, clearly wasted out of his mind. His words were slurred and hard to understand so the station put captions on the bottom of the screen. "That kid, Arnold? He's just way too nice for his own good. How does he expect to win if he can't even be mean to someone?"
Gerald laughed out loud at the television screen. Mark was right. Arnold could barely be mean to Helga, and she tortured him mercilessly. Gerald knew better than anyone that Arnold was a big softie.
The show returned, the camera panning across the drunken chaos of soaking wet naked girls and boys running around their new house. Gerald shook his head back and forth, "What did you get yourself into, Arnold?"
The camera showed all of the drunks sleeping at 3:04 a.m. Mark, still wearing his hat, had made out with Megan before passing out on her bed. Kathy and Andrew were still awake and hooking up. Helga and Arnold had fallen asleep in their own beds. A bedroom camera caught a shot of Jeffery sneaking out of Sarah's bed at 4 a.m. Drake and Jenna were sleeping outside on the pool deck.
The screen panned around the damage done to the house. A lawn chair was now resting in the pool, clothes were scattered everywhere and a living room couch was flipped upside down.
An alarm blaring in the girl's room at 6:30 stirred everyone. Embarrassed and hungover the guys quickly fled the room. No one bothered talking until they were showered and ready for the day's competition.
Helga stood in front of the hallway mirror making modifications to her white t-shirt. She cut off most of the shirt and used the spare fabric as a sweatband. Her chest length blonde hair was pulled back into a high ponytail.
"Morning," Drake mumbled as he closed the sliding glass door.
Helga smirked, "Dude, you're going to be late. We have to leave in twenty minutes."
Drake nodded, clearly not paying attention to anything Helga was saying. Helga stormed off from the mirror and into the girl's bathroom, pulling on Sarah's shoulder forcefully. Sarah jerked around from her make-up mirror, "What?"
Helga was in a confessional, "I was pissed. I did not want to miss our first day because Drake was too hungover. I was hungover too, but we had our first challenge! I was not going to lose because of him!"
Sarah had removed Helga's hands from her arm and returned back to the mirror. Helga continued persisting, "I am not losing because Drake's an a- - - - - -e. How do we wake him up?"
A loud fog horn echoed through the house, followed by a loud cry of pain. "Jesus! Alright, I'm up! For f- - -k's sake! God, Andrew never do that again!"
Monday, June 6th, 2011
The scene then cut to the two teams standing on the beach, a large platform visible in the distance.
Kip stood in front of the two teams, smiling, "Every week the challenges will center around a theme, like heights, or water, or eating disgusting things." A few girls groaned at that. "But this week your theme will be. . ."
Gerald screamed in frustration when the television cut to the show's new title sequence.
"How Badly: Student Edition" animated graphics exploded on screen.
A special remix of Eminem's 'Till I Collapse' filled the background of clips that showed the physical challenges the students had to endure. The teens had to climb up mountains, crawl under barbed wire, eat disgusting bugs, jump off cliffs and swim long distances.
Suddenly, the tv screen flashed to a desert scene with two co-ed teams dressed in white and black.
A dozen more one-second long clips revealed the team's challenges and the player's lives in the house. Physical fighting and screaming matches were seen, as well as girl slap fights and drunken escapades.
Intermittently dispersed between all of that were clips of each player, with their name and the school they were fighting for flashing across the bottom of the screen. They each had a short voice over, saying something about themselves.
Kathy: "Kids don't call me 'Killer Kathy' for no reason. Nothing scares me."
Sarah: "People think I'm sweet until they get to know me."
Megan: "I can't help it if boys love me too much."
Helga: "I'm not here to socialize. I'm here to win."
Jenna: "I sure do love drama."
Arnold: "I just want to make it out of this alive."
Jeffery: "I once wrestled a bull. This game should be easy."
Drake: "Shits about to get real serious."
Mark: "My cowboy hat gives me superpowers."
Andrew: "I'm only cocky because I'm right."
"I'm Kip Daniels, and this is How Badly Do You Want It? where we push teens to the limit just so they can earn money for their college education. I'll see you next week when we start the first series of challenges."
A/N: We all know tv shows have hours and hours of footage that never gets shown, right? Well, this is the only episode that won't show all the extra stuff that got chopped on the cutting room floor. The rest of the story will give you so much behind the scene access, it'll be like you're living in the house with the kids. The next chapter takes you on an unfilmed adventure from Hillwood International Airport to Cancún with our two favorite kids. Stay tuned.