Tonight begins "the gauntlet," a 48-hour endurance test in which recruits Wolf and Whitlow will be subjected to "a mental and physical marathon." It takes us a while to realize it, but we soon figure out that the gauntlet begins immediately after last week's Dismissal Hill, the one in which everyone named Moretty-with-a-y or Moretti-with-an-i got booted off the show.

In other words, it's late in the evening, the temperature is dropping and no one's going to be getting any sleep.

Are they up to it? "SIR, YES --." Please shut up.

The first test is called "Lauder's Last Stand." As we will soon learn, each of the events is named after a hapless bygone recruit and the winner of each event will win its namesake's dog tag. The first to rack up seven tags wins the gauntlet. (Winning the actual game show -- this is a game show, remember -- involves more complications and yet more former recruits. We thought recruit Pupo had forever departed from the American popular culture landscape, but no.)

"Lauder's Last Stand" is named in honor of the time -- who could forget it? -- that Lauder had a hard time standing up after doing some crunches.

So here goes. Wolf and Whitlow each strap on a 30-pound knapsack, mount a pair of white platform disco soles and stare at each other -- write Amnesty International now and receive a set of personalized address labels -- at attention, until one of the two falls off. Ready?

They stand. They stare. They stand. They stare.

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Two hours later. It's the middle of the night. Wolf's eyes are rolling unattractively into the back of his head and Whitlow is experimenting with mind control.

"Get yourself a warm glass of milk," she tells Wolf telepathically. "Think about crawling into bed ... and drop." Her porcine lips spread into a greasy smile.

Two-and-a-half hours later, when it's 35 degrees outside, Whitlow is still smiling. Her direct supervisors must be proud.

Five hours and 40 minutes into "Lauder's Last Stand," Whitlow quietly concedes. Wolf, meanwhile, is locked into position. When he tries to get off the platforms, he nose-dives into the sand.

"My toes are frostbitten; I can't feel them!"

We want to feel something, but the feelings don't come.

Later, Whitlow cries. It was the damn knapsack that done her in.

Come to think of it, there is something to watching these two suffer. What would be really great is if they fell in love, split the prize money and decided to "pursue a relationship with each other" on UPN. They could call it "Boots of Love."

But we digress. Whitlow is devastated, so Rosenbaum tries his drill instructor best to cheer her up.

"Just because you jumped down first doesn't mean you're less of a recruit," he tells her.

Aw, Sarge.

But there's no sleep for the wicked.

The next event is called "Coddington's Course," in honor of recruit Coddington, whom we're afraid we have only dim memories of. It's a two-mile obstacle course -- on sand, of course -- followed by a kayak race. The race seems unfair to Whitlow, but whatever. Cue the action music! Wolf takes the obstacles easily, but Whitlow has a tougher time. (Cue the mood music.) Wolf beats Whitlow by a country mile.

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