And now we know: Dave and Jasmine are the $250,000 winners of this season of Beauty and the Geek. That is a pretty satisfying end to this season.

The whole finale, though, was a little lackluster. It was great to see how the geeks were maintaining their makeovers, or how they had tweaked them, in some cases, and it was nice to see everyone together again. And meeting Josh's mom Marla explained soooooooo much.

But I would have preferred more time talking to all the couples and less staged weirdness, like forcing Jasmine to touch a tarantula and the other Josh getting a backrub from a stunned Natalie because he waxed his upper body. (That was based on a promise from some time during the show, but it was awkwardly presented on stage.)

Also, I wish there had been time for Tony to say something. He seems like a sweetheart, and he didn't get much time on the season.

Overall, it was another fun season for the "social experiment." What did you think?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I haven't kept up with Beauty and the Geek as much as I had hoped, and suddenly, here we are at the end.

Last week, the final couples -- Dave and Jasmine and Nicole and Sam -- learned that voters would be choosing the winner. Tonight, they will find out who has been deemed most transformed and which team wins the $250,000 prize.

After that, all the contestants will appear for a reunion show.

It's been a fun season, and there really have been some startling changes among the players. I didn't much like Sam at first, but he he stepped it up as a teammate for Nicole -- and they are probably still around because he won so many challenges.

Dave and Jasmine got off to a bad start when he told her she was his last choice for partner, but they got over it and managed to show a lot of growth.

I am thrilled that William and Jen aren't in the finale -- their tense relationship was unpleasant to watch. Jen wasn't my favorite person, but she really wasn't overstating it when she called William a know-it-all. He could have learned a lot more during his time in the house, but maybe seeing himself on television will help?

Who do you think is going to take home the prize? I think it could go either way. 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Commenter Al Lam responded to my post on last week's Beauty and the Geek:

Don't feel too bad for Nicole. If she went to CalTech with its 1:20 girl to guy ratio, she had at least 10 guys following her around all the time. It is so funny to watch- like a mother duck with ducklings. Also, she cleaned up really, really well. 

I was mostly sad that Nicole was dealing with such a useless partner in Sam, although he seems moderately better now that the love of his life has left the house. She seems like she could probably hold her own in a conversation and isn't as socially awkward as some of the guys, but she hasn't been in an ideal situation on the show thus far.

Anyway, Al was also right when he mentioned that she cleaned up well. The makeover episode is always one of the best in terms of surprises. I could tell that John was one haircut away from being pretty adorable, but who would have thought that hipster glasses and some help with his hair would make Josh look so much better?

Most of the guys cleaned up quite well -- I was surprised how well Jesse worked his bleached hair, and Luke looked so much better with the tamed mane. I hate to agree with Jen, since she doesn't seem all that nice, but she was kind of right when she said William's makeover wasn't that great. He looked pretty much the same, just redheaded. But he seemed happy with it, and if it increased his confidence, well, that's what matters.

What did you think of the changes? 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I really think that instead of having one girl geek and guy beauty compete with the guy geeks and girl beauties on Beauty and the Geek, they should have done a separate spinoff.

Poor Nicole, the lone girl geek, is getting the short end of the stick. Her partner, Sam, was spending all his time with Laura Linney lookalike Rebecca, and at the beginning of last night's episode, he invited Rebecca into his bed -- the top bunk, with Nicole attempting to sleep in the bottom bunk. She fled the room, embarrassed and angry.

Seriously, has anyone else noticed how most of the other teams have bonded and are trying to help each other out? Whereas Nicole and Sam seem to be operating in different universes.

Anyway, in the first challenge, the geeks had to give the beauties massages and get rated. It seemed like Will was going to win yet another challenge, but Jesse swooped in and took it by one point. He and his partner, Erin, were desperate to nominate Will and Rebecca because of the unkind things Will said about Erin when they nominated them last week.

In the second challenge, the beauties had to build a model rocket and launch it before anyone else did. Several people almost had it, but Sam pulled it out in the end.  (Nicole also won me over with her "Reading is Sexy" T-shirt, which I also happen to own. And it's true, y'all: Reading gives knowledge, knowledge is power, and power is sexy, therefore reading is sexy. And it doesn't just hold true for blogs, but for the newspaper, too. So go pick one up, mmmkay. But I digress!)

When it was time to decide who to eliminate, Jesse and Erin knew they were gunning for Rebecca and Will. Sam and Nicole weren't sure whom to pick. Sam wanted to pick someone easy so Rebecca would stay, and Nicole wanted to pick someone she thought could beat Will and Rebecca. But she didn't tell Sam that. Instead, she craftily suggested Jen and William, spinning them as a weak choice, when in fact she thought they were pretty strong. Usually, I'm against that kind of shenanigans in this game. But when you're stuck with Sam, well ... well-played.

Rebecca was totally upset and cried and cried and cried some more (and didn't really study). Then in the elimination room, she biffed both her questions, and Will missed one, too, so Jen and William did take them out.

I did feel a little bad for Rebecca because she suspected the Sam set her up, when in fact it was Nicole. But crazy, if either of them had shown any respect for Nicole, she probably wouldn't have resorted to cunning behavior.  

Next week: makeovers! 

(Photo of Nicole courtesy of The CW)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

I was going to close this entry with a note about how cwtv.com should update their Beauty and the Geek page so the photo link didn't point to pics from last season. But since its web site just crashed my computer and killed the whole entry, that's going at the top. So there!

ANYway, I like that they are mixing things up on Beauty and the Geek this season by adding in a male beauty and a female geek. Too bad the beauty, Sam, is insufferable. At least he won the "beauties debating social and political issues" challenge and saved him and partner Nicole from getting sent to the elimination round for sure.

For the geeks' challenge, it was a nightmare scenario for people like me who hate watching people embarrass themselves. They had to write and perform a rap for Three 6 Mafia. Thankfully, the footage mostly steered clear of the actual lyrics and was more people forgetting the lyrics, the beauties dancing in the background, and John juggling like crazy in the middle of his performance. He almost won, but Will, who (relatively) confidently delivered some (relatively) clever rhymes, ended up winning.

In the end, super-shy Tony and Nicole went home, which wasn't a surprise since they were against John and Natalie, and we've seen clips of John walking in the room post-makeover, which will be on a future ep.

So a memo to the CW, too, not just the webmaster: How about not spoiling your own show?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Anybody else watch the season premiere of Beauty and the Geek last night? I think there's some great potential for another fun season.

I'm not sure how the twist with the girl geek and guy beauty is going to play out since we only saw like 90 seconds of that yesterday. It looks like some of the other contestants aren't fond of this twist, but there was plenty of footage of the guy beauty in the "coming this season" footage, so I don't think they're going to get kicked off too soon.

As usual, there are a couple of geeks who look like they just need better haircuts and they'll be fine.

But on the other hand you have Joshua. This poor guy scored the worst on the social aptitude exam, but he and his partner, Shay (who scored the worst on the IQ test), are looking at it as having the most potential to grow.

I hope the vibe stays positive and not back-stabby. Not sure how that will play out since there were already some people not happy with Joshua and Shay's choices for partners. I also hope that having the hot guy around doesn't mean that the women forget that their mission is to get to know and to help the rest of the guys.

What did you think about the premiere?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

One of the guys in sports suggested I check out The Pick-Up Artist on VH1. This features a so-called master named Mystery helping doofy or nervous guys learn how to pick up women -- and CHANGING THEIR LIVES! (Emphasis is Mystery's.)

I had watched the first episode and then kind of forgot about it, but I watched a couple more episodes this weekend, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I like that the guys are gaining self-confidence and learning how to talk with people. But I don't like how contrived it all seems. Mystery and his, uh, Mystery Men speak in all this jargon about sets and social worth, and I swear they have more acronyms than the military. The whole thing seems to reduce women to targets and interacting with them to a game, which feels pretty patronizing. (Also, the edgy makeovers are a little much. "He has streaks! Now he's cool!")

I much prefer the dynamics of Beauty and the Geek, whose fourth season kicks off tonight at 8 on the CW. I just feel like on this show, the guys actually learn how to interact with people on a real level instead of this contrived way on The Pick-Up Artist where it's all about the "close."

But hey, I've been married seven years and I'm about as out of the loop on the dating scene as you can get, so maybe Mystery's way is what people are looking for. But I'd rather just have a conversation with someone than find out they were using tricks to manipulate me into thinking a certain way about them.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

A friend and I had discussed today that the big twist on the finale of Beauty and the Geek 3 was going to be that the voted-out teams would decide which of the final two teams would win. When I saw that prediction had come true, I knew Megan and Scooter were going to win over Nate and CeCe/Cecille. I couldn't have imagined the drama that would come along with it, though. I hoped that somewhere along the line, CeCe would realize that she had learned something from her experience on the show, about being confident in her intelligence level or about meeting friends and having meaningful relationships with people outside your usual circle of people. But I didn't expect that she would turn so hateful toward the experience. At different times through tonight's finale, she said she didn't like any of "those people," that her real friends in L.A. would probably laugh at everyone in the whole house, that if anyone in the house changed "because of some nerdy guys" then they were just ridiculous.

So, right. Not a single thing learned.

But I was still shocked when Nate realized that she had learned nothing in the experience and that if his team won, she would think it was OK to not try to be a better person. (His point being that everyone should always be trying to better themselves.) When he started telling the "jury" that they shouldn't vote for his team because then CeCe would think it was all right to continue on the same path, I was flabbergasted. So those shocks kind of overcame the lack of shock at the eventual revelation that Scooter and Megan were indeed the winners.

Expect more drama next Wednesday when there is a reunion show including behind-the-scenes footage. Will CeCe have had an epiphany since the end of filming, or will she just be furious that Nate actually campaigned against them? I, for one, can't wait to see.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

At first, I wasn't really sure about the casting on this season of Beauty and the Geek. A couple of the geeks seemed to clean up a little too well, and some of the beauties seemed uninterested in anything besides tanning and possibly winning some money. Over the course of the show, though, it appears that everyone has grown and learned a lot about themselves.

Except for CeCe.

She is fixated on winning the money. She doesn't think she has anything to learn or change about her life. She wants to marry someone rich and hot and not have to work. She still thinks her best feature is her pout.

Ick.

Sure, last season, some of the teams were put off by eventual winner Cher, who also desperately wanted to win the money, but it was more about not having to work three jobs anymore and possibly going to med school at some point.

But CeCe is all about the shallowest of aspirations, and unlike her fellow teammates, she doesn't seem to have come to the realization that there is more to life. It's kind of disgusting. And I hate to say it, but if she plans to live her entire life based on her looks, she is going to be sadly disappointed when the sun damage she's inflicting on herself catches up with her and she's left with wrinkles, hair bleached into total destruction and the inability to hold a meaningful conversation.

So, as much as I like CeCe's partner, Nate, I'm rooting for Scooter and Megan to win this thing on Wednesday. I still wish it could be Mario and Nadia in the finale instead of Nate and CeCe, but there's no going back now, right?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The playoffs last weekend threw off my whole reality TV viewing schedule, but I should be caught up by the end of the evening. At least for now.

First up, last weekend's Apprentice (reairs on CNBC on Saturdays, by the way). Team Kinetic didn't have to participate in the task at all, thanks to their win the previous week. Arrow had to split into two teams and create a theme tour for Starline tours in Hollywood. Aaron (the Columbia, Md., contestant) stepped up to be one of the team leaders, and Michelle kind of got steamrolled into it. Here's how it went down.

On Aaron's team (which also includes hyper James and Melania lookalike Stefani), they decide to hire some Lakers Girls to jazz up the crowd and pick a theme of "Famous Places, Beautiful Faces," which focuses on famous movie locations. James takes ones of Starline's tours and decides what he does and doesn't like -- deciding that snacks are good and goofy jokes aren't. At the end of the first day, the team sets up a makeshift office outside, works hard and quiet for a few hours and heads to bed. During the task the next day, they have a huge, happy crowd, and they get going. James is on the mike, and his energy (and nonsensical statements) is off the charts. After a while, Stefani takes over and starts talking about the actual sites, saving the day.

On Michelle's team (which also includes Tim, Frank and Nicole), it seems like Michelle is petrified to make a decision because if they fail, she will be blamed. This totally backfires and she comes across as confused and spineless the whole time. The team picks the theme "A Day in the Life of the Rich and Famous." But as Michelle and Tim drive around Hollywood, they don't really see much that they like. So she decides Beverly Hills is a better option. But after driving around there, she thinks it's boring. She goes back and forth (several times) with Tim but finally decides Hollywood is the way to go. Frank and Nicole get annoyed and start taking care of things like tux rental and banners. Back at camp, the team starts working on a route and Michelle wants everyone to stay up all night. Nicole disagrees, but eventually relents. On event day, it's kind of a disaster. The mike fails right off the bat. Michelle talks to the crowd and literally makes no sense. Tim points out the hotel where John Belushi died of a heroin overdose and uses the term "speedball" (though in interviews after the fact, he realizes this was a bad, bad idea). He also starts talking about the stars on Hollywood Boulevard while he's still on Sunset.

In the boardroom, before they hear the results, Aaron and his team say they are confident. Michelle and her team acknowledge they had some logistical issues, and Nicole and Frank say she wasn't a great project manager. The results: 82 percent approval for Aaron's team, 58 percent for Michelle's.

Before they leave the boardroom, Michelle "resigns." We all know Trump hates quitting more than about anything, so there is the usual heckling and discussion about how she will regret it forever. She mostly seems to have issues with the living-outside part of the equation, but she doesn't relent, and she decides to leave.

So she leaves, and eventually the rest of the team learns no one else will be fired. So that's the end.

But let me leave you with some of the best quotes of the episode from Michelle:

• "I want to be operating in consensus."
• "Is that OK to be second guessing it?"
• "If you were me, which direction would you go in?"
• "Are you thinking too?"
• We will be telling you about "the elements of being in the caliber of the rich and famous."
• "There were people on the bus who certainly weren't angry."
• "The team absolutely stood up to the bat."
• "I would love the opportunity to work for your organization in the conventional way, but at this point I don't even want to come back to the boardroom: it's not worth it to me to go through this."

One last thing: It's vaguely hilarious that the other team constantly listens in on the losing team through the hedges.

=====

On Beauty and the Geek, it's getting a little out of control. The guys seem to be in it for the right reason, but the women? Well, it's looking cattier than the SPCA. Week before last it was the blondes vs. the brunettes, with Sharee and Andrea both sent to elimination. I liked Sharee, but she was out, leaving Angela, who is not nice to her partner, but finally started studying, in the game. She was not getting along with any of the rest of the girls. Which I could have understood, because she wasn't that nice, but the blondes really banded against her, which was rude.

In last week's episode, the guys finally got makeovers, though they had to pick out their outfits themselves based on information given to them by the girls. They all looked pretty great afterward. Poor Mario wasn't too happy because the store they were in didn't have that big of clothes, so he felt uncomfortable. He still looked good, though. Scooter looked so much better with his scraggly facial hair gone. Matt looked more grownup and happier. Drew looked much more confident and modern with his new look, and Niels was thrilled with the outfit he picked out. Nate, losing his giant beard and trucker hat, had the biggest transformation. He reminded me of Adam Levine, the lead singer of Maroon 5, after his makeover.

For the competition, the women had to try out their marketing skills, selling the boys in a charity auction. Niels ended up bringing in the most dough, and we followed all the guys on their dates -- on which they all managed some conversation.

Niels and Jennylee differed on who to send the elimination. They agreed to send Matt and Angela, but Niels wanted to send Nate and Cecilia and Jennylee didn't because of her flirtation with Nate. He overruled her, and it got kind of ugly. Jennylee said they had to send Andrea and Matt, and afterward Angela called her on that. They had this horrible interaction that ended with Jennylee saying, "I guess it's because I'm cooler than you." In case you were worried that this hadn't descended to seventh-grade depths.

One of the guys said last week that they are supposed to be learning about social interaction from the women, but that they sure seemed to have a lot of issues with one another compared with the no-drama friendships the guys have all developed with one another. Very good point.

Anyway, in the elimination room, Cecilia got both her questions right, leading her team to victory and sending Matt and Andrea home.

I like all the guys who are left, but I think Nadia might be the only woman who seems to be striving for any depth or to learn anything from the guys. We'll see what happens this evening.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Yes, I am on a Beauty and the Geek kick, but the whole time during the premiere I was thinking that Megan looked like Joy from So You Think You Can Dance. Here, you decide:

Joy from So You Think You Can Dance 2.
Megan from Beauty and the Geek 3.

At first I thought possibly it was the same person, but with a seven-year age difference between the two and with them growing up in different parts of the country, I think not. The resemblance is startling, though.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I wasn't sure what to expect with Grease: You're the One That I Want, the new reality show that will cast Sandy and Danny for the new Broadway production of the classic movie/musical. But after watching the first episode Sunday, the whole thing feels like a rehash. The first round of singing auditions is more than reminiscent of American Idol, and the tiny bit that we saw of the dancing auditions felt straight out of So You Think You Can Dance. It will probably start to feel more unique when the acting and the viewer voting get added in, but so far, I'm yawning.

On the other hand, I caught up with the third season premiere of Beauty and the Geek, and I continue to adore the show against all odds. I thought it sounded horrible and mean, but it's much sweeter than I expected, most of the time anyway. In the premiere, the beauties and the geeks met and chose partners. In their first challenge, the women had to find three books based on the Dewey Decimal System, and the guys had to accomplish three tasks -- find a stranger to rub sunscreen on their back, to give them their phone number and to let them borrow a cell phone to make a quick call. In the next challenge, the guys had to do a standup comedy routine at a club, and the girls had been given some study materials on current events. When they got to the venue for the challenge, they were told that they'd be reading the TelePrompTer and interviewing the author of Freakonomics, which was part of the study materials they'd been given. That challenge was a disaster on almost all fronts. The comedy club bits were almost impossible to watch, but Nate and Mario both pulled through, especially Nate. And Sheree seemed almost professional in her interview and really impressed the judges, with Nadia doing reasonably well (though by the time she went, the judges were happy that someone could pronounce "enigmatic").

Tori wasn't happy with Sanjay for not praising her (disastrous) performance in the interview, and she didn't seem willing to take his apology. Eventually, they got sent home, but I'm getting ahead of things. Meanwhile, Andrea seemed to relish yelling at her partner, Matt. She talked a big game about wanting to do anything to win, but she sure didn't seem to study -- she was totally unprepared for her interview. You'd think a self-proclaimed beauty queen would know how to prepare for an interview and would know something about current events. But not this one. She flat-out angers me.  But everyone else seems great. Frankly, I'm not convinced that Nate is really that much of a geek -- I mean, sure, he's in a Star Wars tribute band, but being capable of performing on stage takes guts and writing songs takes creativity, so he doesn't necessarily fit the "incapable of relating to people" model they seem to be looking for in their geeks on this show. (And, yes, it's possible that as someone with at Yoda figurine given to me by my dad sitting on my desk, that I don't really consider Star Wars-related things as a good barometer of geekiness.)

Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to the next episode tomorrow night. If you like shows that have some personal growth to reveal, check this one out. It's on the CW.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)