Beauty and the Geek

Welcome to the season premiere of that lovely social experiment we know and love, Beauty and the Geek. This season, the experiment has changed in a very material way. Instead of being paired up in beauty/geek pairs, the competition will be beauties versus geeks. What hasn't changed, however, is that there are remarkable transformations in store for us this season, not to mention that there will also be that $250,000 pot at the end of the competition.

Tonight's episode of Beauty and the Geek begins when the nine male geeks pull up in a GeekMobile and arrive at a hangar. The doors open, and in comes a jet, the AirBeauty. The beauties walk out, looking very sultry and gorgeous. It's cute to see the geeks' jaws drops. In the confessional room, Cara the aspiring soap star admits that she can't tell time. Leticia, confessionals that she doesn't like girls because they lie too much. I hope she gets along with the boys.

The host of Beauty and the Geek Mike Richards, looking every bit the geek, introduces everyone. Jim confesses that he's a n00b with women, and then he uses air-quotes, even though he finds them terribly intrusive. Matt the poet wastes little time before he writes an ode to Cara. After a little bit of chit chat, Mike Richards explains that the nine geeks will compete as a team against the nine beauties.

Everyone heads over to the Beauty and the Geek mansion, and immediately flits around claiming bedrooms. Greg doesn't have a room, so the girls invite him to stay with them. Tommy asks Jason unironically if he's a top or a bottom. One of the guys creates an awkward moment by yelling, "Girls suck!" As I expected, Greg immediately wins everyone's heart (and he says that he's into gaming and "gay-ming," I love it!). Amber, the runway model, gets bored by the girls' strategy session, so she goes and sits on Joe's lap in the hot tub.

Later on, Greg, whom the girls have dubbed "Greggie," cries to the girls that he doesn't feel like he belongs with anyone because he's the lone artistic geeks amidst the slew of math and science types.

Everyone assembles in the library so that Mike can explain their first challenge. The challenge will be about getting phone numbers from strangers. The team that gets the most numbers at a Hollywood club wins, but the catch is that the beauties will be getting a "make-under" to level the playing field. They'll be getting bad clothes, bad makeup, even fake acne breakouts and plastic surgery gone awry.

As soon as the meeting is over, the geeks set to studying their materials diligently together. Meanwhile, the beauties get ugly prosthetic noses and fat suits and the like. The thing is, except for Randi who gets a face full of warts and a crazy hairdo, most of the beauties don't look all that bad. Sure, they are somewhat less comely than before, but they still have nice eyes and nice smiles.

And now it's time for the challenge to begin. Everyone files into the club and the attractiveness quotient in the room immediately drops. Jim has trouble talking to his first target. Matt writes an impromptu poem, and Greg has a major disadvantage because there doesn't seem to be very many gay dudes at this particular club.

Back at the mansion, after the challenge, Randi, while sitting on the couch eating a plate full of fried chicken, runs her mouth off loudly to everyone about Amber. Amber comes in and a gigantic fight ensues. They've been at the house like a day and they already hate each other? Tommy jumps in and separates the two, but I suspect that this is not the last fight between Randi and Amber that we will see.

Mike Richards has presumably been up all night verifying that the phone numbers collected in the challenge are real, and the next morning he announces that the beauties won the challenge. That means they will all be safe from elimination, but they will have to choose five geeks to send to the elimination room.

The beauties decide to employ the process of elimination, and choose the four geeks that they definitely want to stay in the competition. The geeks stand on the staircase as Amanda chooses Chris, Tommy, Jonathan, Joe and John E. Of these five geeks, one will be going home tonight.

The eliminations are more like Jeopardy this season. Each of the five geeks stands behind a dais with a buzzer. Mike asks the first question about dating, and Tommy buzzes in with the correct answer, so he's safe. Chris and Jonathan follow suit with correct answers, which means it's now down to Joe and John E. Unfortunately, for John, Joe is quicker with the buzzer, so John is sent home. As Mike gives him the good-bye speech, John sort of has a mental breakdown and crouches down behind the dais, wheezing. I hope this experience isn't going to get him off the wagon and back to Microsoft.



-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)