Category: Beauty and the Geek
Beauty and the Geek 02-04
Rating: 
This week’s episode of Beauty and the Geek offered my favorite type of challenge. Instead of the girls and the guys having separate tasks which are graded separately, they work together using their strengths to win one task. The beauties were tasked with giving their geeks a makeover. The geeks then had to go speed dating, which I actually think is a great idea for a task on this show.
Chris was being his typical jerky self when he told one of his speed dates that he was thankful for some intelligent conversation after being paired with his beauty for weeks. This, needless to say, greatly upset Tristin who up until that point was feeling very good about all her accomplishments thusfar. Tristin let Chris know she wasn’t stupid and didn’t appreciate Chris constantly telling her she was in so many words. I think their conversation got through to Chris. It isn’t that he’s really a jerk deep down inside, he’s just has a huge ego. He apologized to Tristin with one of his custom greeting cards.
It was no surprise that Tristin and Chris were chosen to go into the elimination room. Unfortunately they weren’t able to survive their third journey to the room and were sent home. Chris seemed to walk away understanding that there’s more intelligence in the world than what can come from a book. Hopefully Tristin gained enough confidence in her ability to tackle the unknown that she’ll crack open a book and figure out the sun isn’t just a really big planet that’s way too hot to visit.
Beauty and the Geek: 02-03
Rating: This week’s challenge made use of the geeks’ interior decorating skills and the beauties’ technical skills. The guys went on a Bed, Bath and Beyond shopping spree to pick up anything they’d need to decorate a bedroom. The tie for worst decorated room had to be between Josh, who did a kid’s room complete with a messy floor and a teddy bear stapled to the wall; and Wes, who dipped his finger in red paint and wrote on his dark green walls, “Time stands still when I’m with you.” Why he thought a psycho message on the wall was the way to go is beyond me. Besides Josh and Wes, most of the guys did pretty well.
The girls were asked to come in and judge each of the rooms without knowing which geek did which room. Once a winner was determined, desks and boxes of computers were brought out. The task for the beauties would be to hook up a computer, burn a CD and then play that CD on a separate CD player. When I first heard the girls were going to be building computers, I thought they were going to build one from scratch. I should have known better. Surprisingly, most of the girls did well in this task too. Some of them, of course, were pretty hopeless though. In the end, Tristin and Cher were neck and neck.
Spoilers inside! Do not continue if you don’t want to know the outcome.
Beauty and the Geek: 02-02
When we last left our beauties and geeks, Chris and Amanda were about to disturb the peace in the house by switching teams. Honestly, I can’t blame Amanda for not wanting to parnter with Chris. They decide to swap with Tristin and Brandon, which is unfortunate because I like them both and think they would have done well as a couple. Chris wanted to partner with Tristin because of her perceived intellect, however after a few minutes alone with her, he realizes he was kind of wrong.
This week’s challenge for the guys was to stand in front of an audience and perform a karaoke song. The audience would vote for the best team to determine the winner. The girls’ challenge was to give a speech on one of four hot political topics, such as taxes or the environment.
The girls made sure all of the guys were prepared for karaoke, but some of the guys didn’t bother to make sure the girls were very prepared.
As such, the guys all did a fairly great job with the karaoke task and the girls were left stumbling around, trying to define the good and bad points of social security and the like, without much of an understanding of it. Granted, some of these girls are dumber than dishwater. I believe it was Tristin, for example, who in one of her applicant interviews that the sun was a really big planet that was too hot for us to live on or go to. Yeah. How does anyone past second grade not know the sun is a star?
Spoilers inside! Do not continue on if you don’t want to know who won the first challenges and who went home this week.
Beauty and the Geek 2
Rating: 
The second season of Ashton Kutcher’s reality TV show, Beauty and the Geek premiered this past Thursday on The WB, with an encore episode scheduled for Wednesday, January 18 at 9pm Eastern.
I’m a big fan of reality shows which help people improve their life rather than exploit their flaws and this one is no exception. I was a bit skeptical of the premise the first time around, but the idea is executed masterfully. 8 typically geeky guys are paired with 8 typically prissy beauties in a contest to see which couple can grow the most. The show isn’t about making fun of geeks or taking stabs at the beauties. The show is about helping people overcome obstacles which have prevented them from living a full and wholly satisfying life. The geeks help the beauties use their critical thinking skills while the beauties help the geeks with their social skills and personal appearance. This isn’t a dating show, although love may blossom in the house as it did last season (across couples).
Thursday’s episode introduced us to the cast, set up the couples and executed their first challenge in which the winners would have the ability to swap players on any two teams including their own. So far, the only person in the cast who really sticks out is Chris, the 22 year old graduate of the University of California. He has a sense of humor which he displays in his own custom designed T-Shirts with phrases like, “I put the stud in study,” however he’s also displayed an enormous ego. On their first night in the house, he refused to hang out with the group at the hot tub because he felt he was too “ripped” after lifting weights for 6 weeks and didn’t want to shame the other guys. He also refused to let his partner answer any questions in the first competition, stating more or less that he was smarter than her and had more confidence in himself. As with all the contestants on the show, Chris will either be quickly booted out of the house or will learn the meaning of teamwork and having confidence in another human being.
This show is all about stepping into your uncomfortable zone and finding confidence in abilities you never thought you had. It’s about becoming a better person and recognizing the true inner beauty in every one you meet.
