We all have our dirty little secrets. Shows that we might like to watch that we maybe daren’t tell anyone about, for fear of great shame. Shows like: Embarrassing Bodies; Hellcats; Dating in the Dark; Ten News; Ellen. For me, it’s Beauty & the Geek.

How can you not love a show that’s built on tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, coupled with stereotyping a casting agent would be proud of?! 8 geeks & 8 – well, actually 9 – beauties are partnered, one with the other, to compete in challenges that play to the strength of the competitor’s partner. So the beauties are attempting grade 7 Physics challenges, & the geeks are facing deportment/shopping/clothing quandaries. It’s the original fish out of water story!

This show isn’t about the challenges, though. All 16 competitors are housed together (I think in the “White House” of Biggest Loser fame?), & the house has a pool, a spa, & alcohol aplenty. Need I say more. There are incidents, accidents, hints & allegations made, and here I am – stuck in the middle with you watching it all. It’s marvellously awful television. The beauties are portrayed as vapid airheads, and the geeks fare no better being painted as super-brained nerds with zero social skills (yet they clearly are able to relate to each other quite well). Mmm, good times, great times.

This season, to “mix it up”, there’s 9 beauties (although the geeks don’t know about it) – one set of twins. Think the “Logans” debacle of Big Brother a few years ago (if you didn’t see it don’t worry, you’ll join the dots yourself). The girls will swap in and out without the knowledge of the geeks, & play it for all its worth.
“Wasn’t she just shunning me, now she’s all over me? I don’t understand women…”
You were never meant to, random geek.

S01 of Beauty & the Geek Australia played it pretty low key. No real shenanigans, no relationships (as much as the boys may have dreamt it was a dating show). Given the contestants for S02 *should* have seen the previous season, they’d have some idea of what to expect and some reasonable expectation that the producers were going to be ramping it up this time. The promos are very suggestive of spa-related intimacy & touchy-time. Who knows. Who cares?! As long as I get to see an hour of Aussies conforming to global stereotypes & pigeon-holing themselves for the rest of their public careers (geeks – geeks; beauties – strippers), I’m good.

Bernard Curry as host only further supports the inference that the personality DNA went to his brothers, & he was blessed with the bland gene. That, or for some god-forsaken reason the producers asked him to front the show like that. Hmm. The $100,000 split between the winning beauty & her geek surely doesn’t cover the embarrassment this show will be. Still, it’s all fun as long as it’s not me. Sneak peek enjoy!

Beauty & the Geek Australia (Season 2), 7 Network, Thursdays 8:30pm
Image/Video sources: 7 Network