My roommate showed me that the cast of the next season of Beauty and the Geek is up now. I have to say though, I’m pretty bummed to see that there aren’t any University of Chicago students or graduates in the cast this year. In its first season contestant U of C student Joe Hanson was on the show and also happened to live a couple of floors above me (also, Hanson now does an online video series directed and filmed by Maroon News Editor Hassan Ali, check out their blog here, they have some great stuff). Needless to say this made the show rather popular in my dorm–how I was introduced to it.Last year Joe (a different Joe), a U of C graduate lasted until the final round.The no U of C-ers though seems to be part of a trend. This year it seems like they have fewer terminally geeky contestants(the type you tend to see frequently at the U of C) and more goof-ball geeks, the type who aren’t hopelessly socially awkward but consciously decided to hang out with a weird group of people at some point and never changed. Case in point are the two Harvard fools on the show: Scooter (who can recite a breathtaking 5 digits of pi!–I guess that is the type of thing that is impressive at Harvard) and Nate (who is a big Star Wars fan, him and like 25% of young guys) just look like off-beat guys, not geeks. Maybe they are weird, but if you compare them to Sanjay and Piao (other new contestants on the show) it is clear these guys aren’t even in the same league when it comes to geekiness. Also, Niels looks like a pretty normal guy that is wearing a nose plug in the pool, something I’m sure he didn’t chose to wear. The only geek that would make it here looks like Matt (an MIT graduate).The show is probably shooting to have more instances of Wes from last season, who entered the show as a geeky looking guy and left looking quite dapper (and also managed to have a fling with one of the female contestants on the show). Hopefully they don’t let that pursuit consume the show this season.