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Why I Love...Beauty and the Geek

Two contestants from Beauty and the Geek
  • Posted at 11:05am
  • 09 June 2008
  • by GerryKiernan-RT
  • 1 comment

You've heard of Wags. Now meet the Bags. The Beauties and Geeks in this show are a curious species who coexist in an alternate CCTV-laden universe to compete for a pot of dollars.

Each intellectually challenged beauty is paired with a gormless geek to complete weekly tasks that play to each other's strengths and weaknesses. One couple is turfed out of the house each week; one duo wins at the end.

Sounds simple enough. But if the assembled Bags were on an Everest climb to improvement they would be at least five weeks away from base camp. Thankfully they have a whole series to change, so there's hope.

Imagine people learning interior decorating and karaoke (the geeks) or designing a computer and debating politics (the beauties) with all the dazed shock and distaste of contestants on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!. Combine that with the exuberant expectation of those looking for love on a dating show like, say, the compelling car-crash Mark Philippoussis vehicle, Age of Love. Then add a bit of clawing, Apprentice-like competition. You now have some idea of the comic appeal of watching two very disparate groups search for common ground.

For those of us who have always lusted after kooky oddball musicians like Jarvis Cocker, or appreciated the sexy turn of a librarian's heel, this successful US series is proof that our American cousins have finally caught up. Since Ugly Betty went stratospheric, it seems Americans have now realised what we all knew. Geek is the new chic.

Of course, there are those who defy being labelled. There was an intelligent beauty in the last series. And one guy whose T-shirt made him too smug and confident to be a true geek. "I put the STUD in study", it screamed.

Sadly, some of the girls have been stereotypically stupid. "There are types of screwdriver?" gasped one, incredulously. Some of the guys have been equally stereotypically socially inept. For example, one of them actually said, "At 5ft 5in I don't feel my body does justice to my phenomenal mind."

At least the Bags, unlike most odious, self-absorbed reality TV contestants, recognise their own shortcomings. It's a big step for anyone to admit she's shallow on national TV, but that's what one blue-eyed beauty discovered when she dug deep.

And let's not forget the scope for on-screen romance, which always makes for gripping TV. At the risk of sounding superficial, if Lost babe Evangeline Lilly can date a hobbit, anything is possible.

Although a pair of Bags eventually triumph - and in the fourth series there's a new wild-card pairing of a male beauty with a female geek - the show taps into our desire to see geeks succeed. Beauty and the Geek sounds naff - and occasionally it is - but the Bags' desire to change and learn from their partner elevates it above Big Brother and its ilk. At last, maybe it's time for the geeks to inherit the earth.

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  • Posted on 21 July 2008
  • at 8:24am
  • by Free Chat

I found this blog on a google search and boy am I glad I did. I thought I heard someone mention it in a free chat room.

Awesome read!

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