NYCC: King of the Nerds

At New York Comic Con this year, nerds invaded just a little bit more then they usually do. The cast of King of the Nerds came to NYCC to promote their upcoming season and talk to fans about their previous season. Nerd-Base was there to get an interview and attend the panel.

I watch more reality TV than I should be admitting to, but shows like King of the Nerds, really resonates with me. I haven’t found a show like this since Beauty and the Geek that was meant for us, but didn’t insult us at the same time. Many shows have tried, but have fallen into the insulting/laugh at us trap. Thankfully I’ve forgotten the names of those shows, as I hope you have too.

To simplify King of the Nerds for the uninitiated, it’s basically Real World with nerds competing to be the last one standing. The final nerd in the house is crowned our King, and wins $100,000. In the first season the contestants varied from more pop culture nerd-dom like video games, and comic books, to really smart nerdy stuff like rocket science and physicists. We learned during the panel that the new season will include a theater nerds, and a puppeteer.

During the panel they showed an exclusive clip to help promote season 2, and create a story line around it. Celeste, the season one winner, was struck down Game of Thrones style, and now they are looking for a new king. I hope at some point they release the clip online because it looked really fun. During the clip they showed off some of the future guest stars (probably judges) which include Bill Nye, and Mayim Balik.

For the new season of King of The Nerds they brought Genevieve the first season’s runner up, back as a challenge consultant. They were looking to make the challenges on the show more interesting and nerdy so they asked her, her opinion, and she sent them a 20 page document, so they decided to hire her. One of the things that they stressed both during my interview and the panel is that the challenges are going to be much more complex this time around.

Fan favorite, Genevieve, during the panel also talked about her feelings during season one. She said she felt like Wesley in the Princess Bride when the Dread Pirate Roberts told him “Sleep Well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning”. She never felt safe during the show and she always felt like she was about to go home. Genevieve also promoted her novels, which are available through her website.

During the panel and the interview, we were able to hear from JoshWittenkeller (Jwittz) about his time on the new season. Jwittz won “The People’s Nerd” competition that TBS recently held. TBS gave fans the chance to cast one of the competitors through a special crowd-sourced casting call conducted on the show’s Facebook page. Josh seems like a good competitor, but does he have what it takes to win it all? They have already filmed season 2 and are currently working on it in post production. King of the Nerds doesn’t return until January 23rd^,2014 so we have a bit of a wait ahead of us to see if he pulled it off or not.