King of the BLECH!

     I don't know how to say it any other way... I AM DISAPPOINT. Never have I been so disappointed in those of my kind. While I consider myself a geek rather than a nerd, there are several similarities between the two; therefore, the contest was for Kingship over what I like to call The Geekdom. The problem is... most of the contestants were terrible, as was the contest itself.

I think I'd fit right in...

The Ridiculous Concept and the Failure of its Execution
     I'm not going to lie... the premise of the show had me excited. I mean, getting a dozen or so nerds to fight for the title of King of the Nerds? Who wouldn't want to watch that? Oh, right... OTHER NERDS.

     First off, geeks and nerds who are any sort of intelligent don't watch television anymore. We get all our news and entertainment from the internet. Okay, I know that sounds hypocritical since I watched it, but I had to in order to see if they did the Geekdom justice. Secondly, because I am such a geek, I found it hard to accept these supposed "geeks" and "nerds" as legit. They constantly told us that these people were nerds, and told us what their fields of study were, but when it came time to put their knowledge to the test... THEY FAILED.

Example 1: Episode 4.
     Comic book nerd Alana failed... hard. She was the "Comic Book Nerd", yet she got almost no answers right. Given, the questions were off the wall obscure, but well get to that later...

"D" is for "Derp"...

Example 2: Episode 7.
     Physics genius Moogega lost in the preliminary nerd war, which she should have had dead to rights. Then she failed again in a "stacking competition". Oh those contests... wait, we're not gonna' go there...

I'm not gonna' lie... when she shoved those rulers in the NES cartridges, I died a little inside.

     Thirdly, not every facet of the Geekdom was represented in the show. Did anyone, at any time, mention anything about anime? I don't remember any. Where was the Sci-Fi centric episode? I heard a lot about geeky topics, but I never saw anything. Some of the contests weren't even expressly geeky or nerdy. Oh those contests... don't go there, Goon. Just don't...

Nonsensical Contests
     Too late. Most of the contests had no connection to anything geeky or nerdy. Driving remote control golf carts or flying around remote control quad-copters? Nope.  Stacking random objects? Nope. Matching and memory? Nope. Writing and singing a "Nerd Anthem"? We don't need that! We've already got one!

     Disclaimer: I know that not all geeks and nerds are white, but when you think of a nerd, what's the first image that comes to mind? Yeah... I thought so.

     Where was the actual video game contest? Just Dance is not a geeky game. None of my geeky friends play Just Dance. In fact, I don't think anyone I know even owns a Kinect. I'm pretty sure geeks and nerds in general thought the whole idea behind the Kinect was a giant step in the wrong direction for gaming. All that aside, I'm pretty sure "dancing" is not a geeky pastime.

     I do have to give them credit for a few of the contests. The giant chess game was a proper nerdy contest, even though they shoved a half naked man with a sword and a weird cat lady in there because "that's what nerds like"... right? Right?

     The superhero debate was decent as well, although I think they went about it wrong. Instead of having and argument then counterargument, there were just two arguments. It wasn't so much a debate as it was an essay reading. I think, however, that the cosplay contest was probably the best contest of them all, and actually pertained to geekiness better than any of the others... besides maybe the sudoku or physics nerd wars. But fighting a sumo wrestler after being hit by tennis balls? YOU'RE GRASPING AT STRAWS, TBS.

*Facepalm*

     Something must also be said about the trivia contests. The first one between Heavy Metal Mathematician and Comic Book Lass had a good level of difficulty, but they botched it with that stupid dice roll game. Every other trivia game, however, was off the wall obscure. When your comic book nerds are guessing on pretty much every question during the comic book trivia battle, you need to think up some simpler questions. If you're going to have a vast assortment of nerds and want there to be any semblance of competition, you can't be using questions that only die hard nerds of that particular genre would know.

     Then there was the "Jeopardy" ripoff at the end. Instead of having them try to answer every question in the lockers, they made it the first two to five correct answers. If they were going to copy Jeopardy, they should have just copied Jeopardy. Have them answer all the questions, one at a time, with buzzers. None of this multiple choice nonsense either. Trebek would be ashamed...

The Drama
     *Begin personal rant.* Why? Why are you crying? You went into this knowing that there could be only one, yet you whine and sob when someone stabs you in the back? You may have had teams, but you knew it would eventually be a free-for-all. Maybe this is my cynical, insensitive, unemotional nature coming out, but I don't see how you could get so fed up when something you know was going to happen, happens. Grow up. I know this is reality television, but if you can't handle the heat, don't fight the dragon. *End personal rant.*

Somebody call the WAAAAAAAAAAAMBULANCE!

The Ending
     Perhaps my biggest complaint with the show, is the final contest... THE POPULARITY CONTEST. In the end,  the winner was decided by majority vote, not by actual ability. This is not the "President of the Nerds", it's the "King of the Nerds". Kings took power by force, most of the time at the end of a sword! What's the point of all the contests to gauge nerdy knowledge if you aren't going to use that?

Although, to be honest, I don't think they knew what they were doing half the time anyway...

     What made it worse was the fact that the worst contestant in the show won it. Now, hold on. Let me squash any potential, "You're just mad because your favorite didn't win" arguments. For your information, my favorite didn't even make it to the end. Ivan, my choice for King of the Nerds, was ousted after failing at a segway race (yet another nonsensical contest which had no redeeming value whatsoever). To be honest, I didn't like either of them. Therefore, I was forced to choose who would be the best for the Geekdom. Genevieve was a comic book nerd and fantasy writer, was a valuable member of her team, and had gone to three different "nerd offs" and walked away victorious (often by the skin of her teeth, but victorious nonetheless). Celeste was a "pro gamer" with no other geeky or nerdy qualities or abilities, commonly let her team down when her turn came around, and never went to even a single nerd off. You tell me: who worked harder for this?

     Celeste said that because she never went to a nerd off, she must have been doing something right. If that thing was, "not being a threat", then, yes, I'd have to agree. No one saw her as a threat because she had no abilities other than being good at video games, and we, the viewers, really didn't get to see if she was any good or not. Oh those contests... Just let it go, Goon... There are a lot of people out there who are good a video games, but they aren't geeky or nerdy by any definition of the words.
     In her speech to try to secure the throne of games, Genevieve made the point of how she wanted to be a good "ambassador". When the other contestants made their votes for king, they had to know that whoever was picked would be the face of nerds and geeks of all kinds, and might get offers from all manner of geeky and nerdy companies to try and sell their products. And some of them did:

"My task at hand is to pick someone to represent the nerd community."

- Vergil (Ep. 8)

     They would essentially be an ambassador for The Geekdom. I really don't see how the pro gamer with no other geeky qualities can be better than someone who was far more well rounded in geekiness. Genevieve should have been the King Queen of the Nerds, because she was legitimately more nerdy, on various levels, than Celeste.

CONTESTANTS... WHY U NO PICK THE BETTER CHOICE?

     There, I'm done. I am terribly disappointed with several of the nerds on the show, who can't look past their emotions long enough to pick the most suitable ambassador. This is why I don't watch reality television. It depresses me to watch shows like these, but because it was supposedly geeky, I had to give it a shot. I feel it failed on multiple levels, and desperately needs to be more relevant to geekiness. As much as I hate to admit it, I'll probably watch the next season, just to see if they've figured out how to make a proper show. You hear that, TBS? Get your act together and make us a show worth watching!

(Some pictures may have been acquired through Google images searches... I ain't got time to look up all this stuff...)