Reuters reports that one of the most adverturous reality-TV shows, an English show entitled Second Chance that mixed a reality format with social reform, has come to a sudden and unexpected conclusion when its 16-year-old "star," Ryan Bell, was expelled from the Downside School in Bath, near the Welsh border..
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The show was widely discussed in England, and many minorities had looked up to Ryan, a black teenager selected for a $24,000/year scholarship to Downside, even hailing him as a hero for his outstanding academic performance. He placed top in his class in biology and Latin and also performed admirably at rugby. However, he had also received two prior disciplinary warnings, and an incident this weekend involving underage drinking proved to be the last straw under the school's honor code.
The weekend expulsion was not filmed, and no decision has yet been made about either the show or Ryan's future. Ryan was said to be at his home in south London with his unemployed mother, avoiding comment on newspaper headlines such as "'Redemption of teen rebel ends in tatters."
So ends the most public part of the story of a 16-year-old boy who, through the unblinking lens of TV, became THE symbol for an entire generation of underclass youth. We hope that pundits in the U.K. learn how to cut Ryan some slack in the many days to come.
