My New Shameful Reality Show Addiction

Disclaimer: I only recently got to watching the episodes I recorded, which is why this post is so out of date. I have finally seen them all up to last week's installment, so feel free to talk about the latest episodes in the comments if you wish.

Remember a while back when I extolled the virtues of Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School? I thought I would never have to worry about being drawn into another reality show again. I thought that maybe I got the bug out of my system, and would not need to see another reality show for the rest of my life I thought I was free.

Until I made the mistake of reading the entry for the premiere of Beauty and the Geek.

For those of you unaware of this fine program, it is a show where a group of male 'geeks' of varying degrees (and I mean geeks; not how Hollywood thinks geeks look, I mean they make Judd Apatow's protagonists look like Aaron Eckhart) and made to live with a group of 'beauties' (read: standard shallow reality show ditzes, who are of course primarily blonde). The two groups often pair off and try to teach their other about aspects of their lives. I remember such attempts as having said beauties trying to make model rockets, while the geeks were taught how to approach women quite blatantly out of their league (The Pickup Artist is basically a hack ripoff of this game). Created by the one and only Ashton Kutcher, it was actually pretty sweet sometimes, and not nearly as crass as you would think (unlike said TPA).

I checked out the show at various periods, mostly to see the quizzes, and vaguely remember two of the contestants one year hooking up romantically. But I never really got into it that much, despite the obvious appeal. Apparently, they decided to change things up a bit by introducing an attractive male and a geeky female. I chuckled at the thought that both will be mobbed equally, only the female geek won't be as receptive to the advances as the male hunk is. I started to wonder how this would change the dynamic of a show pretty damn obvious to predict in the first place.

And that is how the bastards got me.

First off, they had one of the couples from the previous season do a AI-ripped contestant search. And just like all other contestant searches, they had some doozies. But that really doesn't matter, at least not as much on this show. So I skipped ahead to the intros.

At this point, since I am recording it as of this writing, I am going to switch to a semi-live blogging format. I am going to pretty much type whatever I feel at the moment during the intros. Here we go:

First up on the beauty side is Holly, who demonstrates her skills as a Betty Boop at Universal Studios. The geeks are duly impressed (and completely floored by her). I love these guys. Holly is going to be hard to hate, because she might be one of the girls too "dumb" (read: she is actually quite sweet and honestly wants to get to know these geeks) to realize she is supposed to be a bitch to the guys, unlike Shay and a few others who won't let us down.

Dave is a goddamn LARPer. A LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAYER. Wait a sec, he has some foam swords. I really hope he is the kind that meet up in parks and beat the living hell out of each other, and not like a Vampire: The Masquerade kind of dude. The former is awesome, the latter is not. As for those who are fans of the latter, suck it. Obviously this dude is one of the latter (or a GM), because he wrote an introductory monologue for himself. Aw, how cute. He had one of the girls take a sword and let her 'kill' him in mock combat. Kudos. They own me now. There is no hope. Save yourselves.

Amanda is an "Aspiring Playboy Model". Which I assume means she either wants to be Carmen Electra or the next Girl Who Rides The Viagra Vacuu.....I mean, the next Girl Next Door. What is funny is that I harbor an irrational attraction to Kendra. I don't know why. I need help, really. Anyway, back to the show. She brags about her breasts costing eight grand. Good for you, young lady. Also, the looks on the geeks faces are fucking PRICELESS. Please don't tell me they are scripted. Pleeeeeaaaaase.

Josh (Rubberband Club President) is hilarious. This guy out-nerds me. He has the nasally voice, the weird laugh, everything. Louis Skolnick would slap this guy and tell him to get laid. He even shoots a cup off of one of the girls' heads as his 'talent'. He is now my hero.

Jen is an Amazon. She bench-presses 135 (as she puts it, "more than the last girl who came in here"). She is tall and quite athletic. She can probably fold up these guys like lawn chairs. Best way I could describe her is "blonde Jessica Biel". Take from that what you will.

John is the requisite MIT student, because you can't have a bunch of geeks without at least one student from either MIT or CalTech. It is a law of nature. He juggles.

Rebecca goes to massage therapy school. She naturally offered to demonstrate, and naturally one of the geeks shot his hand up so fast it almost entered orbit. Said geek later said she was the best and "most positive" before his speech centers devolved into simply saying "yeah" as he reminisced.

William apparently owns thousands of comics (who doesn't?), and tried to show off his skill with those baton-stick-juggling things? Anyway, he was obviously too nervous and goofed a few times. Oh well.

Natalie is the "ultimate Hooters girl", having been on what sounds like every possible piece of Hooters merchandise ever. Her talent: tying a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue. And as Will points out, we all know why that is considered impressive.

Joshua is an astrophysicist. He also was so nervous talking about himself that he called his mother on his cell phone, put it on speaker, and let her talk him up. That's right. By the way, he is another person that Shay seems to have trouble accepting as actually existing. Now who exactly lives in a fantasy world?

Now it is Shay's (of the "I want to hit her" fame) turn. Her likes: singing, dancing, and shopping. Big surprise. Apparently she didn't have a talent or much to say, because they only showed her answering the "see yourself in 5 years" question. Her answer: get back to her in 5 years.

Luke, the robotics engineer, was the very lucky guy who got the massage. He completely screws up when one of the girls asks him if he would build a robot woman if he could. He answered ambiguously, but then tried to clarify, which made him sound even worse. Of course, we all know the real answer: in a freaking heartbeat, which is why more women need to be involved in science and math. Because the moment we geeks are able to replace you, we WILL. And since we usually have very little exposure to you females, we probably won't miss you a bit.

Katie is apparently a sorority girl, and said earlier in her confessional that she was impressed with Dave and the intro he did. And she thinks Josh is the cutest so far. Her talents include finding Waldo (yes, as in Where's Waldo?) and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. At least she is honest with herself.

Jesse is a software engineer (and yes, Jasmine, that does involve computers). And now he's done, apparently.

Erin works at a hair salon. She asks if any of the geeks even went to a hair salon. Subsequent embarrassing hair montage ensues.

Tony is apparently the token Asian geek, the Long Duck Dong of the group if you will. Only that he is from Arkansas, thank God. I don't think I could have handled a horrible Engrish accent. He says he is a biomedical engineer, but his subtitle says "medical student". What, you don't think folks at home can handle him being a biomedical engineer? His talent: teaching how to tie a bow tie. I have always wondered how to do that. Katie believes he could be "a diamond in the russ".

Jasmine was the one Dave 'fought' and also said she sometimes felt like she lived in a fantasy world. She looks South Asian or maybe mixed. Can't tell if that is a tan yet. Might not be. Moving along, she is apparently a babysitter according to her subtitle. Her talent: cheerleading. No one survived the resultant explosion of pent-up sexual frustration. Just kidding. By the way, girl must only be able to breathe helium with a voice that high. And she is quite chipper.

And that is the end of the initial introductions.

This post ended up longer than intended, so I am breaking it up into two parts, the second of which will include highlights of the second episode (the one with all the twists!). So, to be continued I guess...

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