The Fall Geek TV Lineup

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."

Comments

The IT Crowd

[Burb]

For those of us in the UK, there's always the IT Crowd. It's a bit hit and miss, but the second season seems to be hitting the spot more often compared to the first.

Chuck, Big Bang Theory, and The IT Crowd

[Tipa]

Chuck and Big Bang Theory had free previews on Yahoo! So what the heck, I watched them.

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.

Mother Teresa

[scrad]

Hmm, attacking the 'messenger' without researching the message? I don't particularly like Christopher Hitchens either. However, I do like to know the truth.

They all apply to Mother Teresa.

Susan Shields was one of her sisters for 9 1/2 years and writes "Three of Mother Teresa's teachings that are fundamental to her religious congregation are all the more dangerous because they are believed so sincerely by her sisters. Most basic is the belief that as long as a sister obeys she is doing God's will. Another is the belief that the sisters have leverage over God by choosing to suffer. Their suffering makes God very happy. He then dispenses more graces to humanity. The third is the belief that any attachment to human beings, even the poor being served, supposedly interferes with love of God and must be vigilantly avoided or immediately uprooted. The efforts to prevent any attachments cause continual chaos and confusion, movement and change in the congregation. Mother Teresa did not invent these beliefs - they were prevalent in religious congregations before Vatican II - but she did everything in her power (which was great) to enforce them. Once a sister has accepted these fallacies she will do almost anything. She can allow her health to be destroyed, neglect those she vowed to serve, and switch off her feelings and independent thought. She can turn a blind eye to suffering, inform on her fellow sisters, tell lies with ease, and ignore public laws and regulations. "

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html

From Wikipedia: The Telegraph, an Indian daily, has referred to her as "the Saint of the Gutters", also mentioning calls for "Rome to investigate whether she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-moral cause".

"In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband insist that conventional medical treatment eradicated the tumor."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/05/wteres05.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/05/ixworld.html

Dr. Aroup Chatterjee is the author of the book Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict. http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/index1.htm
http://www.meteorbooks.com/

Letters written my Mother Teresa doubting the existence of God: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119059822005736983.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Many attempts have been made to get information about how and where money is spent to CURE people of various diseases or just WHERE it all goes. Tell me, why would an organization that accepts so much in donations not want to proudly show how it's being used to do 'good work'?