The highly anticipated, if only by me, fourth season of
Beauty and the Geek begins tonight with a special two-hour season premiere. Word has it that there aren't going to be any eliminations tonight. I wondered at first how they are possibly going to fill up the entire two hours, but thankfully, there are enough lovable geeks to pass the time.
In the grand tradition of
America's Next Top Model two-hour season premieres, the first hour shows Mike Richards scouring the country for the very best geeks and beauties. Helping out are last season's sweethearts,
Nate Dern and
Jennylee Berns. Sidebar: Nate still has a rather unattractive full beard. He's still kind of cute, though.
Nate and Jennylee travel to Boston, Raleigh, NC, Little Rock, AR, and finally, Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Mike goes to Washington, DC, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
In Boston, Nate and Jennylee meet
Dave. Dave is a LARPer which, he explains, stands for live action role playing. It's like Dungeons & Dragons, except you act it out in real life. We are treated to some awesome home video footage of Dave and his friends in full medieval garb, acting out a swordfight. This may betray which camp I belong in—beauty or geek—but I have to say that I think I know people who L.A.R.P. Heh.
Although Raleigh is the home of Research Triangle Park which has one of the highest concentrations of Ph.D.s in the country, Nate and Jennylee meet a beauty who says that her IQ is "slightly over not too dumb."
Things start out slow for Nate and Jennylee in Little Rock. After what seems like an endless wait, they finally get some good candidates, including
Shalandra, a.k.a. Shay, who is very cute and bubbly, a geek who has taken apart an old-school Nintendo system and put a modern computer into it. He actually brings it with him to the interview.
In Vegas, Nate and Jennylee first meet Summer, who giggles nervously and breathlessly after every word that comes out of her mouth. I am so glad that she wasn't chosen because the short montage of giggles that follows her interview is more than I can take. There is a hideously mannish woman who looks to be about 50 years old who meets men at strip clubs and would marry a man for money if he didn't have long to live. She may be stretching the definition of "beauty." Thankfully, she isn't selected to move into the mansion either. Sadly, Nate and Jennylee do not meet any geeks in Vegas. It's true. I've been to Vegas, and there are no geeks there at all. Not a one.
As for Mike, his search begins in our nation's capital. There he meets a geek who has 10,000 comic books and a beauty who thinks that Big Bird is the symbol of the Democratic Party.
In Chicago, Mike is joined by
Joe and
Karl from season 2 who help out with the selection process. A geek named
Joshua is interviewed first, and he quickly steals my heart. Seriously, he is my favorite and I am going to pick him to make it all the way. He studies type 2 quasars, plays chess and composes chess problems. He has trouble remembering the last time he's been kissed, but awkwardly says that that there may have been some kind of "incident" back in January. I would bet any money that his "incident" was when he had to kiss his aunt on the cheek!
Next, Mike goes to Los Angeles, where he bumps into Rubik's Cube expert
Tyson from season 2. Poor Mike. He doesn't have a hottie like Jennylee as a travel partner, so he has to get his fun by kicking it with past geeks.
Mike makes his final decision on who needs the most help and therefore deserves a spot in the
Beauty and the Geek mansion.
The nine geeks are: Dave the LARPer,
Jesse who lives with his parents,
John the analog circuit designer,
Josh the mechanical engineering student,
Luke the electrical engineering major, Joshua the astrophysicist and my personal favorite,
Tony the bowtie wearer,
Will the filker, and
William comic book collector.
The nine beauties are: the artificially large-breasted
Amanda,
Erin the hairstylist,
Hollie the Betty Boop impressionist,
Jasmine the babysitter,
Jen who can bench 135 pounds,
Katie the retail store manager,
Natalie the Hooters girl,
Rebecca the massage therapy student, and Shay the bartender.
Check out our recap of the second half of the two-hour premiere, Beauty and the Geek, "When Worlds Collide."
-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of The CW)