King Of The Nerds

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussion' started by wcw43921, Jan 20, 2013.

  1. wcw43921

    wcw43921 Footpad

    King Of The Nerds

    So--is anyone else watching this?

    I'll admit it--I've seen the premiere episode three times now. It's fun. There were a couple of surprises, and the contestants are pretty cool--one of the contestants, Genevieve, said that people who first meet her describe her as being "cute" and "innocent"--but when they get to know her they use words like "Machiavellian" and "ruthless." (She's also a Batman fan. Most of the women on this show are devoted Batman fans.)

    There's also a guy named Ivan, a role-playing games designer/developer whose credits include the Outbreak Undead RPG. Anyone familiar with this game?

    Then there's the house where they live during the show--Nerdvana. If you're the type of person who drools over custom-built gaming tables, you'll need a bucket and mop for this place.

    They chose up teams in this first episode, and two players went to elimination--a chess game on a life-size board, with a wonderfully dressed catgirl to move the pieces and a barbarian warrior to "execute" the fallen (they broke open and blood-red crepé paper flew out). Preview of the upcoming shows promise even more fun events.

    The show is on Thursdays on the TBS cable channel at 10 PM Eastern, 9 PM Central. I plan to watch, and I think you'll have fun watching it as well.
     
  2. JediSoth

    JediSoth Troubadour

    I've heard of Outbreak. It and its supplements have been submitted to the ENnie Awards the last couple of years. That's the limit of my knowledge. I was already mostly burned out on Zombies at that point so I didn't really look at it very closely (good thing I'm not a judge).
     
  3. mordrin

    mordrin Spellbinder Staff Member

    Really? I thought the ads looked horrible.

    Like the participants were interesting people who were being forced to act extreme and reinforce hoary old stereotypes about geeks, because that's how clueless producers told them they had to act.
     
  4. francisca

    francisca Troubadour

    Oh, they aren't clueless. Everything they do is an exaggeration of whatever their subject matter is, whether it is a occupation (cop, lawyer, professional athelete) or some other aspect to distinguish them from "everyone else" (nerd, redneck, guido, bimbo, evil beauty paegant mom, "real" housewife). They do this to make the archetypes easy to identify in an effort to make the characters one-dimensional, because it's easier to like or loathe a single-dimensional caricature, than a multi-faceted person. It also makes it easier to pander to a particular demographic by building exemplars of such.

    So, clueless? Hardly. It's shrewed and calculated. Certainly offensive - to me anyway - and greatly responsible for me feeling there isn't much of anything on TV I want to watch. And this really isn't new. it's the old good-guys-wear-white-hats and bad-guys-wear-black-hats thing.
     

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