The Ultimate Social Experiment - Beauty and the Geek

From the producing team of Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg ("Punk'd") comes the CW hit reality show "Beauty and the Geek" .

This is according to the show's website http://www.cwtv.com/shows/beauty-and-the-geek-4/about , anyway. Channel 7 obviously aren't so certain about it's hit potential, as they are screening at at 11pm on Thursdays during non-ratings season.

I caught the 1st episode of Season 2 of this show during the week (while I was rewinding my tape of "Jane Eyre", OK!). The "beauties" of the title are the usual vacuous, silicon enhanced women of US reality television. The "geeks" are, not surprisingly, geeks. In this episode we met contestants such as Cher - Beer Spokesmodel, Brittany - Tanning Salon Administrator, Tyson - Rubik's Cube Record Holder and Karl - Dungeonmaster (Dungeons and Dragons, not part of the CIA at Guantanamo Bay). I will let you guess which ones are the beauties and which ones the geeks.

There are challenges each week, one where the beauties are tested on academic subjects and one more pop-culture oriented to challenge the geeks. The beauties and the geeks are paired up and share a bedroom and help each other through the challenges. According to the entry on Wikipedia the contestants actually say that the show has helped them in various ways.

The episode I saw wasn't too bad. Some of the geeks are quite endearing and I suppose the women are OK if you like fake tan and botox.

The really interesting thing about this show is that it has just finished it's 4th season in the US and they are casting a 5th.

So, if you want to see how Tristin - Shot Girl gets along with Chris - Tracks Monkeys With Lasers then watch 7 at 11pm Thursday.

Tee-La, writing during the ad breaks of Survivor China.