King Of The Nerds - General Discussion

[EricJ]

Editor's Note:

Discuss King Of The Nerds here!

 

This season has nearly been rendered unwatchable by Zach being that guy so hard, but I'm still watching.

[Monty]

I think part of Zack's problem is that he's been practicing the "You fools! I'll destroy you all!" speech in his head for his entire life, so when he finally found an opportunity to use it, he went nuts.

[Monty]

I found that finale pretty satisfying. For one thing, they didn't end the season on a popularity contest like they did last season. And I was rooting for Kayla! Although that's two female winners in two seasons, so maybe "King" of the Nerds isn't the best name for the show.

[Iheartdoctorwho]

I found it hard to watch Zach, he was so shiny!

[Joystickenvy]

He was unpleasant and I hope they don't cast more of his type in the future. In general I'm not a fan of reality show characters that only exist for drama, but even within that group there's drama that can be fun or amusing and there's drama that just sucks the fun out of a show. Zack was the wrong kind. Kind of a shame because he turned out to be a fairly good player in the nerd offs.

[Abra Came]

Kayla was such a deserving winner.  She is so completely her own person, in all the best ways.  Girl is not afraid to let her nerd flag fly!  So happy for her.

[Joystickenvy]

I was rooting for Brian, but I liked Kayla also. She had a good strategy and I liked that she seemed totally comfortable in her own skin.

[EricJ]

Casting call has gone out.

[mlp]

Good news!  Thanks.

[Joystickenvy]

Yay!

[tricksterson]

Alas Zack was the type of Nerd other nerds want to shove into trash cans.  But towards the end he did start to develop a little.  i think he developed something of a real friendship with Jack and he didn't go ballistic when he was finally defeated.

[EricJ]

Renewal is now official!

[LoneHaranguer]

New season starts this Friday, January 23rd.

[Browncoat]

Anyone else watch last night?  Colby is surprisingly un-annoying (so far), but that may be because the camera's not on him all the time.  He didn't really seem to get a lot of screen time or talking heads.  I have to root for the Blue team, simply because Colby's not on it. 

 

I much prefer the pre-selected teams to the team-picking.  That aspect of the game always bothered me, and I thought the division of teams should be randomized.

 

Good strategy by the Blue team, picking a well-liked nerd to go into the nerd-off.  Fund nerd-off, too.

[TigerLily20]

I was so glad this show is back, a little sad that the one guy left so early, he seemed nice but Ori (?) seems like he is going to be fun to watch this season.  The NASA girl seems a tad annoying but no major train wrecks this year yet.  I was also happy that I knew most of the answers to the Nerd Off except for the one about the hollywood star (King Kong or Godzilla).  Looking forward to this season and glad it's on Friday nights.  Wonder when the repeat night will be now?

[Jeffurry]

The NASA woman looks, talks, and acts so much like my co-worker that it's freaking me out a little. I'm rooting for her and fearing her at the same time.

[dmmetler]

So glad this is back! My 10 yr old math/science nerd squealed at Danica McKellar-she has all of her books. I think it's a nice balance of personalities, with no one who is outright crazy this year (so far, anyway). I think NASA girl realizes that the academic-types haven't fared well in the past.

Loved the challenges for this first episode, and so glad they got rid of the middle school dodgeball team selection.

[mlp]

I love this goofy show despite not knowing what they're talking about 3/4 of the time.  Love the hosts.  Was glad Curtis found his pants.  I was bummed when the nerd I liked best right off the bat got eliminated first.  I was waiting for the big ZAP when he departed and LOL when the giant watermelon fell on him.  Clever touch.  The young woman from NASA is rather self-important and obnoxious.  It'll be interesting to see how she fares in a house full of people just as smart as she is.

[jumper sage]

I love this show and had my snacks all ready for the first challenges.  My take on the contestants:

 

Colby - sure to annoy

Neuroscience girl - much like Amy on Big Bang she seems to have a thin layer of sweat on her at all times.

Nasa Lady - I am shocked to find out she is only 26.  If you had told me 40 I would have believed you.

[hjmugillecuty]

I began rooting for Amanda when she said she was going to bring the Darwin doll into the war room with her. And I like her shirts.

I liked Jacob too. Unfortunately, that didn't help him. And I have to know if Ori's parents named him from the Hobbit, or if it's a nickname.

Glad the show's back. I liked the devices and wish they'd mentioned one of Michael McMillan's other nerd credits-Firefly.

Rewatching and remembered that I really liked Ben too.

Edited January 25, 2015 by hjmugillecuty

[FastLou]

I am liking the new season so far but don't have many feelings yet about the cast.

One thing however really stuck out:

The LARPER - in his intro he said something like, "I am squire to Sir Somethingorother." So in his make believe Fantasy world, out of all the possible roles or characters, he Chose to play one that basically does nothing but fetch stuff and put on someone's armour?

I suddenly have so many questions. Is he new, and has to work his way up to something better? If so, then claiming to be a hard core LARPER is disingenuous. Does no one like him and that is the only thing they will let him do? Is he so boring and unimaginative that is the best he can come up with? Is it some kind of submissive fetish? I really feel like I need some answers - perhaps I'll get some eventually.

[radishcake]

Oh man, here goes as I out myself but being a squire to a Noble in a LARP world is not as boring as being a real squire. Especially if you are in a fantasy LARP and not a strict SCA or reenactment group. Pretty much everyone in the LARP is subject to a Noble so it's not something that's unusual. I don't pretend to know what kind of LARP he does but it wouldn't necessarily just be fetching and following your Sir with a pair of coconuts. ;)

[LoneHaranguer]

 

I was also happy that I knew most of the answers to the Nerd Off except for the one about the hollywood star (King Kong or Godzilla).

I didn't do as well, but like Colby, I would have gone with Godzilla; it's a much bigger franchise than King Kong.

 

Thomas should rethink his look; there was a brony on an episode of Storage Wars and when a guy is talking about "Pinkie Pie" or "pegasisters" it helps to look a little more masculine.

[Skyfall]

Yaya Han needs to die already.

Also the husband is a contestant while his ex-contestant wife is going the aftershow. Oh boy...

[Browncoat]

I won't miss the Brony, and the Secret 6 thing is annoying, but I will agree that Colby has to go.  Or at least needs to stop smirking.

 

And by the way, Blue Team, you probably should have focused more on the "story with a moral" aspect of the cosplay than the costumes (although the costumes were pretty awesome!). 

 

I suspect, though, that unless it's something objective, teams will trade wins until the end, just to keep things balanced.  Unlike last season, when things got so unbalanced that they had to trade players from one team to the other.

 

I did love the Monty Python cosplay through the forest for the riddles, but in retrospect, the two answering riddles should have been Gollum and Bilbo!

[Jobiska]

Also the husband is a contestant while his ex-contestant wife is going the aftershow. Oh boy...

 

I'm not sure what this means.  One of the female contestants mentioned being married, another mentioned having kids (and I agree with her that handling Ori would be like handling my ultra-impulsive son...when he was three.  He's now 20 and not like Ori).  Oh wait, the one guy (Ben?) mentioned a wife right around when two women were lounging on him.  But I don't know his backstory and can't figure out where to find it.  He's married to someone from a previous season?  And what is this aftershow?

 

I did not watch Colby on Jeopardy and I am not finding him offputting, but I guess time will tell. 

I loved when the costume-maker was sobbing and explaining that her tears were releasing calming endorphins so it was actually a strength.

I guess the blue team's costumes were better, but on a scale of 10, I'd say they were a 6-7 while the others were a 4.  It's not like they were 10 and 1. I think my favorite was actually Ori's and he was on the green team.  And the blue and green body paints were just weird and smeary and greasy-looking.

[jumper sage]

I did not like anything about this episode.  I detest cosplay and thought the skits were stupid.  None of it was as stupid as the judges though.  The whole thing was a crap shoot.  I was wishing that Miss NASA would go home..........

[Dewey Decimate]

How did wonderful-best-cosplayer-ever girl's costume read retro spacegirl? I was expecting something Flash Gordon-like (comic book or cheese-tastic movie) and instead got some smeary disco wood elf.

 

Winning team did a great job on the storyline and humor. "My 401k!" cracked me up, and I am not ashamed to admit that I got a little misty at the robot hugging the evil doctor at the end.

 

An arrangement like the Secret Sucks - er, Six - is to be expected by the third iteration of a reality show, so I can't have expected otherwise, but the demographics of it make me a little uncomfortable. All reasonably attractive Caucasians, while, let's see, who was not included? Black guy, fat guy, gangly girl, and spaz guy (who, if his LARPing role is any indication, is probably also Jewish, Ouch.). Mind you, I'm no fan of the latter two, but I'm bored and even a little disgusted at the prospect of the seemingly more WASPy members taking out the "others". Uncool.

[LoneHaranguer]

 

Oh wait, the one guy (Ben?) mentioned a wife right around when two women were lounging on him.  But I don't know his backstory and can't figure out where to find it.  He's married to someone from a previous season?

I'm pretty sure it was Jonathan that gave the shout-out to his wife, Genevieve, but I don't know if that's the same Genevieve as was a S1 contestant and S2 & S3 part of the show's staff. It's a fairly rare name and prior contestants would be a good way to get a line on new ones, so there's a good chance.

[Browncoat]

Wow, Todd really went off the deep end, didn't he?  I totally get why he was upset, but he just cemented his fate by ranting and raving like that.  And given his confidence in mythology, I wonder if he threw the Nerd-off.

 

That said, at least the Nerd War was subjective (unlike next week's).  Anyone get a good look at the math problems? 

[Passing Strange]

I didn't hear their reasoning in voting for Todd. It seemed like he was already the "in case we lose" pick before they'd even seen how he would perform in preparation for the challenge. I must have missed the logical explantion for selecting him, so it feels like these people who know what it's like to be marginalized just decided to marginalize the fat guy.

[mlp]

 

Todd was absolutely right.  From what we were shown he did alot of work, while Lily just sat there pretty, flirting with that other gullible dude.

 

I agree that Todd was right about Lily who was also a pain in the neck last episode.  He handled the situation all wrong though.  I wouldn't want him around after all that either despite his apology.  I was glad Kaitlin won although I don't care for her and her ego either.  At least she's calm. 

 

That said, I love this goofy show.  The hosts crack me up.  The people who come up with the concepts and all the clever and weird things around the house are very creative.  I'd love to get a better look at some of the "decor."

[dstann]

Got to love Heather's hypocracy of condeming Todd for being a bully while bullying Ori herself.

[Monty]

I liked that final challenge, because (for once) it was long enough and difficult enough that one person didn't win just because the other one made a single mistake. But Todd seemed to know nothing about mythology (Yggdrasil isn't even Greco-Roman! It's Norse!) so it was a walk-over anyway.

[Dewey Decimate]

At times I think of myself as a nerd, but then I watch this show and am humbled because of the arcane knowledge these people spout about comics, engineering, and gaming. (The most I could do is issue numerous and appropriate Simpsons quotes.) However, this episode confirmed that I could hang. I had to hit the pause button when those math problems flashed by, incredulous that they were SO GODDAMNED EASY. Pythagorean theorem and areas of plane figures? Okay, I tutor math and standardized tests, but seriously? I can get an individual struggling with this stuff, but a team of five? I know nothing about Colby prior to this show but I now love that he's a teacher, his impressive vocabulary, and how he handled the instruction of others at a so-called higher level.

 

Then they come out with mythology (which happened to be all Greek/Roman), right in my wheelhouse. Todd didn't get Prometheus = fire? Holy shit on a cracker. How do they recruit these people? And I love this show, but am not in favor of handing out little study pamphlets before the Nerd-Off. Make contestants surf the web and take a guess at what will be covered, don't hand-feed it to them. Finally, enough with the sweaty, pointless sumo wrestler. I'd rather see them go to more points for the win than watch hi-def close-ups of undulating, cellulite-covered skin.

 

ETA: Funny how Lily just seemed shocked/speechless at Todd's crazy outburst until someone brought up her crying. Coincidentally cue the waterworks.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Dewey Decimate

[nottopbravo]

 

Finally, enough with the sweaty, pointless sumo wrestler.

 

As this is a show about nerds, what is this show's fascination with Sumo wrestlers?

[Pallida]

Having spent too much time around advanced concept thinkers, I really appreciated Colby's framing of the problem.  I once took a college-level math class at a prestigious university, and the professor was so advanced he couldn't teach the class I was in.  In fact, he made me unlearn the exact same content I had learned in a previous class.  Those really were high school level math problems.

 

I want to know how anybody gets into college without a geometry class.

[dmmetler]

I have a friend who managed to get to a doctoral program in math without ever having had trig-her rural high school didn't offer it, and she started in Calc I in college because all math majors did. It wasn't discovered until she was assigned to teach a college pre-calculus class in it-and hadn't had half the stuff herself.

We loved the mythology challenge here-I lead a club for homeschoolers taking the Nationl Mythology Exam, and I may be borrowing this :)-my 3rd-6th grade nerdlets will love it!

[Monty]

From what I could see of the puzzles that I freeze-framed on, they could both be solved almost immediately if you remember that right angles with sides 3, 4, and 5 are very common in simple math problems. So if you see a non-hypotenuse side that's 3 or 4 (or a multiple), then you can just skip to the end without doing math.

[LoneHaranguer]

 

I liked that final challenge, because (for once) it was long enough and difficult enough that one person didn't win just because the other one made a single mistake. But Todd seemed to know nothing about mythology (Yggdrasil isn't even Greco-Roman! It's Norse!) so it was a walk-over anyway.

I'm not going to disagree about Todd's ignorance, but I think he gave up half way through with the idea of later pretending he threw the competition. He didn't even pay enough attention to what he was picking up to call Yggdrasil by name. It's pretty much pronounced like it's spelled (the leading Y is treated as an I), but he called it "ear-a-goggle". BTW, when Heather was saying that they may as well stop, she neglected to take into account that each name was being played until someone got the right item.

[Kromm]

Todd really isn't that smart.  I think he falls on the end of the Nerd spectrum that has more to do with being a social outcast than being smarter.

 

He seems to have gotten not just SOME of his mythological knowledge from comic books, but ALL of it.  He's basically an obsessive about the comics, but never had the intellectual curiosity to go beyond them and read the source of most of their material.  I mean Prometheus?  The Trojan Horse is probably the most well know ancient myth, and Oedipus probably the second one, but Prometheus is probably a not too distant third.  Not to mention there was a big movie of that name that most nerds would know from 2 years ago, and even though the tie to fire is not readily apparent from that, the mere naming of the movie likely refreshed a lot of memories or caused a lot of people to look it up back then.

 

It's worth noting that while the original comic writers (especially of the older comics from the Golden and Silver ages) used mythology as their templates, they did so loosely. I doubt many of them went and pulled down Homer off a shelf to doublecheck things from their memory.  So even what he DOES know from comics is likely flawed because of that.

[Skyfall]

I'm not sure what this means.  One of the female contestants mentioned being married, another mentioned having kids (and I agree with her that handling Ori would be like handling my ultra-impulsive son...when he was three.  He's now 20 and not like Ori).  Oh wait, the one guy (Ben?) mentioned a wife right around when two women were lounging on him.  But I don't know his backstory and can't figure out where to find it.  He's married to someone from a previous season?  And what is this aftershow?

 

I did not watch Colby on Jeopardy and I am not finding him offputting, but I guess time will tell. 

I loved when the costume-maker was sobbing and explaining that her tears were releasing calming endorphins so it was actually a strength.

I guess the blue team's costumes were better, but on a scale of 10, I'd say they were a 6-7 while the others were a 4.  It's not like they were 10 and 1. I think my favorite was actually Ori's and he was on the green team.  And the blue and green body paints were just weird and smeary and greasy-looking.

Math guy (the one in the Super 6 who had that line) is married to Genuivee (sp?) who is doing the official aftershow.

I'm pretty sure it was Jonathan that gave the shout-out to his wife, Genevieve, but I don't know if that's the same Genevieve as was a S1 contestant and S2 & S3 part of the show's staff. It's a fairly rare name and prior contestants would be a good way to get a line on new ones, so there's a good chance.

He specifically mentioned his wife was a former contestant.

[Browncoat]

Never diss the judges before they've picked a winner.  But, thank you subjective competition, teams have equal numbers of contestants now.

 

All those idols of nerds in the nerd-off, and they could only come up with two women?  Surely throughout all of human history there have been more nerdy women than just Marie Curie and Mary Shelley.

 

Colby was at his smirking finest last night.  However, Ori was starting to annoy me more than Colby has, so either one of them going home was okay.

[Katmai]

What crawled up Moby's butt? He seemed kind of annoyed to be there and could only criticize. At least Travie appeared to understand his part of the competition didn't equate to curing cancer. Lisa Loeb added nothing.

[dmmetler]

I liked the rap better-probably because I'm not a pop culture nerd at all. And I have to say, I wouldn't mind getting a copy of both for my 10 yr old's ipod.

[mlp]

I saw Moby once before, not sure where.  I think maybe it was as a guest on The Apprentice many seasons back.  I thought he was a jerk.  I still think so.

 

I don't like rap in general but I thought Colby's team had much better lyrics and a better beat.  The problem was they were hard to understand.  I wouldn't have known what they were saying without the captioning.  Whatshername who confronted Moby didn't help matters but I did wonder if the decision was more to even out the teams than merit-based.

 

I thought the final nerd off game was fairly easy and was surprised that Colby had trouble with it.  Ori was hopeless.  He seemed nice enough but odd.  His departure was no great loss. 

[dmmetler]

Seriously, corn snakes, ball pythons, garter snakes, and green snakes (couldn't tell if they were rough or smooth green snakes) and Ori was scared of them? I wish they'd stop the "Snakes are scary" stuff on TV shows! (I know it fits in with Indiana Jones, but ugh!). I was glad to see Colby win just because he didn't stop at the snakes.

[KayElektra]

Oh hey!  That Eminem song where he makes fun of Moby suddenly makes SO much more sense now!  Seriously dude, critique them on what they did in 24 hours, don't be a douche and nitpick and grill them about whether or not Hamlet has been translated into Klingon.  OR then continue to be a dick and and quiz them on Star Trek trivia (although I would have gotten that answer right...*cough*).  I thought Travie was the best judge, and he's the least nerdy.  Agreed that Lisa Loeb continues to be irrelevant and useless.

 

I have to give it up for the editing peeps for making it seem like Hooloovoo's "anthem" was going to suck ass, but then it didn't.  Although, during the choreography, I finally realized what seemed "off" to me about Kaitlin's appearance.  Good christ, her neck rivals a giraffe.  She's like the National Geographic women with the hoops around their necks, only without the hoops.  That said, I was super glad to see her start actually playing the game and trying to work a side alliance.

 

Not sad to see Ori go, but I did laugh at the difference in head sizes between Ori and Colby.  Come on, show, if you're going to make them wear hats at least get them in a few different sizes.

Edited February 15, 2015 by KayElektra

[Monty]

If you're going to have a bald, bespectacled musician judging nerd rap, I would go for MC Frontalot before Moby.

[radishcake]

If you're going to have a bald, bespectacled musician judging nerd rap, I would go for MC Frontalot before Moby.

YESSS so much YES.