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The Fall Geek TV Lineup
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Sep 24, 2007 06:08 AM
from the hollywood-nerds-don't-reallly-match-up-with-the-real-thing dept.
from the hollywood-nerds-don't-reallly-match-up-with-the-real-thing dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has an article looking at this Fall's bumper crop of geek TV. McG, who directed the pilot for the show Chuck, opines that the appearance of nerd culture on network television is a long-overdue reflection of real life. From the article: 'Hollywood, he said, is playing catch-up with IT culture. "The classic shape of the computer geek is over when Bill Gates became the (richest), most aspirational, coolest guy in the world," he said. "He is the original thick-glasses, pocket-protector guy. Now who doesn't want to be like Bill Gates?"' They have reviews of the lengthy list of shows, for clues as to what to watch and what to miss."
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Politics: Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President 1224 comments
gerrysteele writes to point out a recent post to the Dilbert blog, in which Scott Adams discusses the atheist ascendancy in America and rationalizes the need for an atheist leader. From the article: "Ask a deeply religious Christian if he'd rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don't seem so bad lately. I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates."
[+]
Bill Gates Talk From 1989 Surfaces 317 comments
70sstar writes "A 1-1/2 hour recording of Bill Gates addressing a crowd of university students in 1989 was recently found and digitized, and has been circulating in some IRC channels for the past few weeks. The speech has found a permanent home on the web page of the University of Waterloo CS Club, where the talk is reported to have taken place. Gates covers the past, present, and future of computing as of 1989. While the former two might be of interest to tech historians, the real fascination is Gates's prediction of computing yet to come. Like the now-legendary '640k' remark, some of his comments are almost laughably off-target ('OS/2 is the way of the future!'). And yet, by and large, he had accurately, chillingly, prophesied an entire decade or two of software and hardware development. All in all, a fascinating talk from one of the most powerful speakers in CS and IT."
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Bill Gates' Management Style 362 comments
replicant108 wrote in to give us Tom Evslin's fascinating account of working for Microsoft in the early 90s. "So you're in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he's rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you're saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don't know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn't looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.
At some point in your presentation billg will say "that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can't really let it faze you. Moreover, you can't afford to look fazed; remember: he's a bully."
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The Fall Geek TV Lineup
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I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://pietersz.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday May 04 2005, @05:22AM)
Most people (apart from the saintly) want money! However, most people have other aspirations as well.
The problem with the article is that is assumes that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, therefore he represents other aspirations. Other aspirations do not count.
How pathetic to ONLY aspire to money. Why not aspire to be Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa or
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday December 17 2004, @07:14PM)
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Funny)
Take inspirational. That means you inspire other people. But you can't aspire other people, so how can you be aspirational? It's unlogical.
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but I think for those people who have thought about it carefully, they only want money in moderation.
It's nice to be able to afford only doing work you find meaningful, and not having to worry about affording food, health care, etc. But I've also heard that most lottery winners end up unhappy (and often broke).
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Interesting)
You probably heard that most lottery winners end up feeling the same as they did before hand. After a major life-altering event for the good or the bad people will generally settle to the same level of happiness within 6 months to a year. Those that are generally happy with there life will generally maintain that happiness even if getting paralyzed in a car accident, and those who are miserable will maintain misery even after winning the lotto.
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://electrob.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 27, @01:42PM)
Nope, people want what they are told money can buy. It's the system at power that makes sure that the only way you can achieve your dreams is through money, and it did it in two ways. Hollywood on one side, communism on the other (and we fall for the non sequitur that the only alternative to the system at power is a system with no property at all)
In the process they stripped money of its core value: being something that makes wealth easily kept and converted. Inflation makes sure you have to trot all your life to accumulate paper. Or, you choose to be the kapo of the system, and accumulate more wealth subjugating your peers. The lucky ones who are good and smart enough to accumulate wealth in a honest way are shrinking.
Re:I don't want to be like BIll Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 22 2006, @10:27PM)
Probably because it's not a good thing to aspire to:
-Oppose condom usage in AIDS-stricken areas
-Take money from despotic regimes and spend only a small portion on its intended purpose
-Run a completely non-transparent operation
-Make your clinic painful to teach people the value of suffering
-Convince people that they should fake miracles in your name
Related stories (Score:4, Insightful)
The IT Crowd (Score:4, Informative)
Who doesnt want to be a two legged stereotype? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Geek" as main character != geek TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Chuck, Big Bang Theory, and The IT Crowd (Score:5, Informative)
(http://westkarana.com/)
I work in the IT department of a major insurance company, so I think I qualify as a geek.... plus I read Slashdot, and if THAT doesn't seal the deal, what can?
Chuck -- okay, if you're going to make a show about a geek/nerd/whatever, would it kill you to run the script past one? The premise: a guy is running from people with guns! And they're firing at him! If only... he... can... finish writing a quick email to his friend he hasn't seen since college. Hey guys, could you quit it with the guns? I'm writing an email here.
Cut to Chuck, who staffs a kiosk called "The Nerd Herd" in some anonymous warehouse store. If they were meaning to riff off Best Buy's "Geek Squad", then instead of Chuck showing his fellow employees about a porn star virus which effects a certain kind of laptop that can't possibly be important later in the show, he would be showing them how to pack it up to send it to the third-party repair folks who really fix the laptops for Best Buy.
Chuck's sister plans a disastrous birthday party meant to introduce him to real girls, but of course it goes wrong, so Chuck silently escapes, turns his TV on and look, there's an email... on his TV... and it has a password based on Zork. Supposedly. Now, every single oldschool game-loving geek would cheer if they read "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a mailbox here." with Chuck. And they would scream, "OPEN THE MAILBOX!". But no. Calm down. It's not that.
So anyway he types in the answer, "use nasty knife on troll" (huh), and then that quick email turns out to be a montage of NBC's fall lineup in black and white.
But no! It's ALL NSA's and CIA's secrets! And since CHUCK has them, the NSA and the CIA no longer have any record of them whatsoever! In fact, the CIA (or the NSA, whatever) forgot that some general who was to address a conference in a hotel minutes from Chuck's place, was to be blown up by a terrorist.
See, they researched this out, spied everywhere, found out what, where, who, and when, and then this guy emailed the details to Chuck and then they ALL FORGOT.
So anyway, Chuck, Jayne^WAlec Baldwin, and the girl who was sleeping with his best friend from college whom he hadn't heard from since until he destructively emailed Chuck all the nation's secrets from his smartphone and then died^KChuck's future love interest saves the day by finding the bomb, getting to the DOS prompt (well, he says he does, but he doesn't actually), and setting off that porn star virus which stops the bomb... WITH OMG JUST ONE SECOND TO GO! PHEW!
So anyway. All the nation's secrets are now in Chuck's head, and the nation doesn't have them anymore. Somehow. Won't these secrets kinda get stale? Sure, he knew the date & location of this one general's assassination, but new secrets are going to be happening from this point on that he will know nothing about, right?
Anyway, the show is for idiots, about idiots.
Big Bang Theory -- a pair of repellant, smelly losers and their idiot friends, and the porn star next door who undresses in their apartment. Nothing to see here.
The IT Crowd (American) -- Moss (Richard Ayoade) will join Joel McHale (The Soup) on the American adaptation of the British series in February. I thought the first season of the British series was brilliant (or should I say, Brie-illiant), and the second season, without the IT focus, a little less funny... Dunno how the American one will go. I expect disaster.
Hollywood Understands (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I hate to be cynical, but as much as Battlestar Galactica is the coolest show I've seen in years, most of Hollywood's understanding of biological science seems to be some variation on Frankenstein, their physical science based on Looney Tunes, and their concept of computer science is best left unmentioned. I'll bet they're making the same mistakes they've always made: thinking good shows can be about some World's Fair technology show and the World of Tomorrow when they should be about the story and the people.
Not me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Redeeming features: None that I can see. Money is not a redeeming feature, since making a lot of it typically means taking it form others without giving back fair value back.
And he is not even cool. I have zero aspirations in his direction. In fact, I think he is the prototypical high-profile failed geek, that has not managed to use his skills for good.
Uneven Shows (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday August 17 2001, @09:42PM)
Chuck: Fun like Burn Notice and Psych but not very nerdy. It's got the nerd culture in it, the socially inept folks and close friendships get good grades from me. However, some parts are very poorly executed: magical images that contain steganography that the brain decodes, an HD explodes from a 4' drop inside the case and a few others that fell flat to me. Oh, it's got Jayne so that's a plus.
Big Bang Theory: Imagine, as someone one EZTV said, Revenge of the Nerds written by mindless jocks. It's crap, crap, crap, so much crap that I was insulted by it.
Journeyman: I thought it was an interesting story, maybe we've seen it before (Quantum Leap) but we haven't as he's not leaping into other people nor is he shifting into the distant past so I think it'll have mainstream appeal (for a few episodes at least). Disclaimer though, I like Kevin McKidd, for a guy in his early 30's he had a lot of heart in his Vorenus character.
The IT Crowd (UK): I watch the show and I have a lot of laughs with it but I'm a sucker for UK comedies. As for geek culture, I have to say it's not perfect but it comes close. In case you've never watched it, the references are the stickers in the office, Roy's t-shirts and Moss' and Roy's personalities (they're socially challenged). I guess that it does come close as, being a practicing nerd, I'm not always talking about gadgets and geeky sites nor am I obsessed with computers and science so I guess it's more organic.
Sam (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://pileborg.org/~arrow/)
Re:Is this a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://kamthaka.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 30 2005, @03:18PM)
OK, then don't worry. Popular and geek are mutually exclusive. Even if something is popular, the geek approach to it will be
Now we must distinguish between shows for geeks, and shows about geeks. Any show with an elaborate fantasy component can be a show for a geek. Shows about geeks are necessarily comedies. Because geeks are supposed to be losers, it is natural to laugh at them.
This doesn't mean the show has to be stupid or offensive, it just means that a show with little ambition or talent can go for cheap laughs.
Frasier, was hands down the most artistically and economically successful show about geeks ever. The Crane brothers are not tech geeks, but they are undeniably geeks: they seek to boost their status and importance by their command of intellectual arcana. What's more, because they are geeks they are losers. Everything we see them attempt ends in frustration. However they are more than caricatures. There isn't a word I can think of for what they are: they are neither admirable nor really contemptible; they are neither unlikable nor truly likable. Somehow, you want them to win but you enjoy watching them lose.
I think the secret of that show is that while the writers give us very broad caricatures, they then proceed to write against the stereotype. The Crane brothers are arrogant and self important, but they also demonstrate an underlying sweetness and goodness in every episode. Although this always serves only to deepen their humiliation, they somehow manage to exceed expectations while they lose. They're the plucky team of losers that doesn't pull an offset against overwhelming odds (which we know in our hearts that movies that tell that story are lies), but surprises everyone by scoring at all.
What makes a show an enduring success are interesting characters, written about in a compelling way. Geeks, with their enthusiasms that often border on mania, their propensity to march to a different drummer, their tendency to be the proverbial square pegs in a round hole, are usually the most interesting people in any group. The trick is writing about them in a way that gets underneath the surface to something anybody can identify with.
"nerd" sure covers a lot of ground (Score:3, Interesting)
The Fall Anti-Geek line-up (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that show in particular is quite anti-nerd, anti-IT, anti-intellectual, etc. I've certainly met people like Chuck - not very good at what they do, but they're damn sure extremely awkward, but the majority of IT folks I've met are insanely happy, always joking, and do stuff like ride their motorcycles or go mountain climbing on the weekends, they don't sit in their mother's basement playing DnD and fixing people's computers for almost no money.
I think it was already mentioned above, but if you want a truly great show for geeks/nerds/whatever you should check out House. The main character is a Doctor that is insanely intelligent and in a position of power. He's not socially awkward at all and quite funny even to a general audience. The only sense that he's "awkward" is just that he doesn't like dealing with morons and shows it every 10 seconds with hilarious insults by anyone's standards.
So who would you side with? The not-socially-awkward Doctor in a position of power or the "let's all point and laugh at the Nerd Herd!" show?
But speaking of house, the new season is on tomorrow night - check it out if you haven't already.
Re:The Fall Anti-Geek line-up (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://debecker.tripod.com)
The difference is that House isn't about "geeks", it's simply about competent smart people. Shows about "geeks" are never about competent smart people, they're gimmicks built around a stupid stereotype. The few TV shows in which computer types are portrayed positively tend not to have them as central characters, and then they are usually hot chicks (I'm thinking here of "Las Vegas" and "Standoff", both of which feature very attractive female hacker types in secondary / support character roles). I'm all for hot chick computer types, but can't we ever have male hackers who are not either socially incompetent, evil, or both?
Next... (Score:4, Funny)
Avoid the Big Bang Theory like the plague it is (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://drludicrous.blogspot.com/)
and to think I can't even fscking stand the word (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://debecker.tripod.com)
would not be in the article.
These shows are going to continue portraying "geeks" as Dwayne Dibley types, because the mainstream view of a "geek" is still a dork in an ill-fitting short-sleeved buttondown with acne, buck teeth, and his glasses taped together. If you think the picture of "geek chic" in mainstream media is going to transcend that stereotype, you're in for a disappointment.
Beauty and The Geek? (Score:3, Funny)
(http://aqfl.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 09 2003, @01:16AM)
Dennou Coil (Score:3, Interesting)
And I did like Rainbow's End, but it didn't hook me on the concept of AR like Dennou Coil has. Rainbow's End showed why the concept would be useful, Dennou Coil showed how it could turn the world into a giant game. I mean cubes of water floating in the sky? I would love to be walking along, look up, and see a digital fish flying around.
nerd culture? no thanks (Score:3, Funny)
Pfft (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. One of the greatest shows on TV.
Placing my bets... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm betting that "The Big Bang Theory" will either be canceled quickly or otherwise never make it past one season. The biggest strain to credibility in this sitcom is the studio audience knowing enough quantum physics to get the jokes and laugh that loudly at them. I've seen the pilot.
Also, like the TV series Ferris Bueller, I expect The Sarah Connor Chronicles to fall... but not as hard. Maybe more like the series Starman, or Tracker [imdb.com]. I understand the characterizations already break with continuity. Coming in mid-season is an established "Lack of Confidence"-labeled nail in its coffin.
I think Reaper may have a chance, or at least make for an entertaining one-season run. Tyler Labine continues to amaze me in finding good and steady work after portraying the delusional Croker in Evil Alien Overlords [imdb.com], but so far it was the only bad thing I've seen him in. Still, it seemed he was having fun doing it.
Re:Not so much (Score:3, Informative)
Also, vaguely related to TV shows starting soon, House MD season premiere tomorrow. Who's excited? I know I am!
Re:Why does the media still call tech folks nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who is Fall ? (Score:4, Funny)