Pop quiz time. Let's say that Ashton Kutcher is bringing a new reality show to the WB. Let's say it's a "social experiment" sensitively titled Beauty and the Geek. Would your reaction be a polite "no, thanks"? Or would it be a more candid "I wouldn't watch even if it meant I'd never see another Ashton Kutcher movie for the rest of my life"? Either way, you'd be within your rights.
But as it turns out, either way you'd be wrong.
In one of the strangest television surprises of this year, Beauty and the Geek is a generous, warm, funny show that rises well above its pandering title. Kutcher and his executive-producing partners devised what they call a "social experiment": take seven beautiful, vivacious women who get by almost exclusively on their looks and personality, and pair each one with a bright, awkward guy who gets by exclusively on his intelligence. The seven teams then compete to see how the "beauties" are able to absorb the "geeks'" knowledge, and vice versa. For example, in early episodes, the women try to teach the guys how to dance--"try" being the operative word--and the men try to teach the women rocket science (no, seriously; one challenge forces the women to put together a model rocket).
Thankfully, it's not a dating show; while the show's first few episodes feature some potential sparks between the beauties and a couple of the more middle-of-the-road geeks, romantic contrivances are blessedly absent. The closest thing Beauty and the Geek gets to steamy is when Mindi shows her partner, hyperactive nebbish Richard, how to spoon ("You mean like soup?" asks Richard).
Though Beauty sounds like humiliation-a-thon Average Joe, it's quite the opposite; its contestants' insecurities is actually the show's greatest strength. "Everyone in the world feels like an outcast at some point, like theyÕre an underdog," says Jason Goldberg, Kutcher's production partner (they created Punk'd together). So for every virginal MENSA member, there's an aspiring fashion designer who feels unsure of her intellectual abilities.
Thanks to that mutual vulnerability, Beauty and the Geek is less a typical elimination-based show than it is a human-interest one--it plucks the same heartstring that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition does, though thankfully in a more irreverent way. And in the show's first few episodes, the contestants seem to get it. There's no undue ridicule, and the laughter in the house is good-natured and self-deprecating; it's clear that both groups are trying to learn from (and about) each other. When the teams are forced to send each other to elimination, Goldberg points out, they do it based not on personality clashes, but on the question "do these people have more to learn from this experience?"
Not to say that the show is all social-utopia pap. It has its share of cringe-inducing moments, what Goldberg and Kutcher refer to as "organic comedy." In the show's first episode, calm neurology student Chuck panics and gets a nosebleed when he learns he has to dance in front of an audience--but his partner, Caitlin, gets him through the challenge. "I couldn't have scripted it better," says Goldberg of the moment. At a time when Punk'd is attracting more criticism for crossing the line of fair play, though, Kutcher and his partners have managed to triumph by letting Beauty create its own storylines. "We're celebrating what these people are," says Goldberg. "Sitting back and watching the monitors, Ashton and I looked at each other and high-fived. We just knew this was going to be something special."