Ashton Kutcher's Beauty & the Geek: TV's Most Popular Combo

Sorry, but, I'm SO over all these shows, reality and otherwise, that pair of geek men with uberbabes. Ashton Kutcher married an older woman; he should be above this kind of cliché. Yet, here again we have Beauty & The Geek, the amiable show pitting geek men (some of them amazingly so) with girls who do nothing to prove you can have looks and brains.

I was thinking about other places where this pairing is seen on TV, and there were really quite a few.

I happen to like Peter MacNicol, but, what's up with his geek characters always getting these attractive younger women? On Ally McBeal he played a lawyer-geek who dated Portia DeRossi's character. Okay, maybe she was as big a social retard as he was, but in a different way. Now, on Numb3rs he plays a physics geek who's buddying up with Diane Farr's character, Megan Reeves, a pretty, size-one FBI agent. Apparently, the characters have bonded over braininess. Really, though, these are women who are not only attractive, but played by people about twenty years younger than MacNicol. What the heck?

You know, I also wouldn't mind that even if there was some turnaround for the ladies. But is hot FBI agent Don Eppes played by Rob Morrow going to go off with some average jill brainiac? No, he's going to go off with some younger, thin model type who, yeah, they'll also call smart. It seems so unfair. You know, it's not even that we don't see geek women on TV, it's that we don't see average women on tv.

It's like the range for main TV characters and their love interests is like this: MEN can be hot or geek, old or young, fat or thin. WOMAN can only be hot and young and thin. I seriously want to scream sometimes? Am I alone in this? I mean, take Kutcher's show. Can we even conceive in this age of a show where the men were the babes and the women were the socially inept half of the duo? I will seriously eat my hat if a show like that ever comes to television.

Anyhow, you know a show I have to give some respect to? Frasier. I don't know what brought that to mind. A few times, that show featured ultimate culture Geek Frasier Crane dating women who were a lot younger than him and had the whole "babe" thing going on (I suppose not unlike Kelsey Grammar's real life wife…). But often, the man dated women in his age bracket, or close to: Jean Smart, Amy Brenneman, Bebe Neuwirth of course, and ultimately, Laura Linney.

Of course, I'm not totally anti-geek (Peter Macnicol is one of my favorite actors). I sort of wished Abby went out with geek-surgeon Dubenko on ER instead of obvious choice Luka, who, unfortunately for Dubenko, is more attractive than 90% of all other men on earth. It would have seemed like a creative choice, not just something some geek writer penned because he liked Abby.

Abby in fact might be the example of the geek-girl who gets the hot guy. She's not really a geek as much as a doctor battered down by life a few times over. But, if we were to do something as shallow as number her attractiveness level and compare it to Luka's, girl's gonna be a few points shy of matching.

ER actually does pretty good with the geeks. You gotta consider Dr. Mark Greene something of a geek, with the narrow frame, the glasses, the science and all. He ended up with Corday, in what was a good, even match. And Neela, well, yeah, hey, she's a girl geek, and she ended up with an attractive guy in Gallant. Though, according to ads, she's going to be finding out a big secret soon, so, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

But here's what really sticks in my critical craw: what's up with all these geeks masquerading as cool guys and getting their choice of chicks on sitcoms. Ted on How I Met Your Mother: geek. JD on Scrubs: Geek. Guy on Out of Practice. Geek who should be cancelled. Freddie, he's a geek, too. I mean, he's a nice looking guy, but everytime he tried to act like a badass or someone who didn't get beaten up on the playground, I just don't buy it.

And what's up with Alan Harper (Jon Cryer, no offense) dating almost as many model-types as his cooler, more attractive SOB brother Charlie? Jeri Ryan (Boston Public) and Jenna Elfman both had a thing for him. Where's the episode where he dates someone more like him- out of shape, pulling into the station at middle-aged, junction, dorky. Actually, pairing him off with the most annoying character of all time, Rose, made a little bit of sense or with his thin but not a covergirl ex-wife. Though, really, she's too irritating, too. That whole show blows…

You know who's a geek who I can see realistically having a pretty, younger girlfriend? Gil Grissom. When the heck are he and Sara going to get it on already?

TV will always be skewed more towards the male fantasy and aspiration than to the female, so maybe, it's to be accepted and expected that male geeks and even just average guys will always get the often age-inappropriate, unrealistically attractive girl they couldn't get in real life, and female geeks and even average females will either remain unseen on TV or have to get makeovers before they get lives.