King of the Nerds - S2E1 - In Search of a King

Legend tells of a lord crowned the nerdiest uber-nerd of all nerds… so says the creepy narrator at the beginning, even though last year’s winner was probably the least of the nerds. But whatevs. What do I know? I’m just a viewer. The creepy narrator continues over last season’s nerds wearing cloaks and being dark and creepy… until Curtis Armstrong and Bobby Carradine put a stop to that nonsense. There are 10 people but only one can be crowned KING OF THE NERDS.

I promise not to guess which ones are the virgins (read: all of them) out loud but I assure you it will be no easy feat biting my tongue.

There is Brian, the super hairy historian. A hobbit in a vest, if you will. Mary Kate is an aerospace engineering student and then something about Bronies and so I skip ahead. Zack is a fantasy writer, one of the top 25 World of Warcraft gamers on the planet, and is way too happy to be here. I think I love him. Nicole is a chemist, Josh is a Pokemon master, Chris is a mechanical engineer., Kayla is a rocket scientist. And then there’s a guy in a bow-tie, who may or may not be one of the people I’ve already named. Most of them have masters degrees. This is like the cast of the The Big Bang Theory in real life.

So, just as last year, the nerds are split into two teams. Captain of team one is Zack, who is currently my favorite based on nothing but his dimples (and apparently I just have a thing for people named Zack). Captain of team two is Chris, who means nothing to me.

The teams are chosen and the details don’t really matter now because we don’t know who anybody is anyway. Though there’s a girl who thinks she speaks Japanese and I want her to go away. She’s the only  person not picked for a team, so I’m not the only one who feels the same way. But the jokes on them because she gets to choose who goes home and it’s one of the scientist, chemist types things called Nicole, and this is ridiculous. Why would you cut someone 28 minutes into the show?

Oh wait, there’s a twist. Nicole is the winner of the biggest nerd of all today. And she gets to choose what team she wants to be on. Which is back on her original team. But then she has to pick someone from that team to go on to the other team. She picks the girl who chose her to go home in the first place. This is madness. Why am I even watching this show? I don’t get paid for it!!

After all this asshole trickery is done, the teams bond and strategize inside Nerdvana. Then we go to commercial break and when we come back, it’s time for the first nerd-off. I hated the way they did nerd-offs last year. You’ll see what I mean when we get to that part, but there has to be a better way to narrow down the person who will reign supreme sitting in the Throne of Games.

So anyway, the gold team is the Midas Touch Attack, which is lame, and includes lame choreography. The purple team is the Titans of Rigel which also includes some lame choreography. Now, if you haven’t seen the show before, how the nerd-off works is that everybody on the team votes on who they want to go into the nerd-off. Then they are given a very vague hint at what the nerd-off is actually going to be about. Bobby and Curtis show them a broom and say they are playing a game called Nerditch. So, they’re going to play Quidditch on the ground? Or they’ll be quizzed on Harry Potter trivia? Or fantasy in general? Remember I said  few paragraphs back how I hate they way they do the nerd-offs? This is what I’m talking about. They have three hours to prepare for something without even being even sure what they need to prepare for and the topic or theme of the nerd-off isn’t necessarily something that particular person knows anything about. It would be better to present a topic and then let the teams choose the person best suited to that topic. It makes more sense that way, especially considering that their encouraged to create a well rounded team when they’re choosing teammates, but it doesn’t matter in the end. The winner is never actually going to be the nerdiest person. It’s just going to end up being the luckiest… End of rant.

The two chosen are Chris and the girl who thinks she knows Japanese, because nobody else likes them either. The nerd-off turns out to be fantasy trivia. They answer a question and if they’re right, they literally fly on a broom to drop potions bottles into cauldrons. The nerd with the most point wins. It’s pretty simple. Well, the trivia is. Throwing potion bottles in a cauldron looks pretty hard. Especially if you’re a girl who thinks she speaks Japanese. Her name is apparently Kelsey.  As soon as I learn her name, the game ends with Chris at 600 and Kelsey at 450. Game over for Kelsey. She leaves immediately. Bobby and Curtis briefly mourn her passing and then have her stomped on by a raptor.

So, other than this screwed up nerd-off method, I really like this show. I don’t currently hate anybody, so this is good news. Ya know, except Kelsey and Chris. Otherwise this is a good group. They’re funny and so far nobody seems like a massive tool. I couldn’t ask for more.

Next week, this will all happen again, except that Mayim Bialik will be there.