7 Awesome TV Geeks

Sheldon is one of the best characters on this show. Of course, the other geeks are pretty cool too, but Sheldon is just so lovable.

Played by Jim Parsons, Sheldon is incredibly intelligent. He has a B.S., an M.S., an M.A, and a Ph.D.  and he is a Caltech theoretical physicist. He thrives on routine and his social skills are minimal. He doesn’t understand humor, irony, or sarcasm very well and doesn’t exhibit empathetic feels often. For those reasons there are many viewers that speculate that he may be and Aspie (have Asperberger’s Syndrome, a condition that is on the Autism spectrum). This has been denied by Bill Prady, the director of the show, but anyone who is familiar with Autism and the spectrum of characteristics that can be displayed know that it is pretty much undeniable.

Despite his inability to display humor or intentionally use sarcasm, Sheldon is funny and lovable and has taken his place as one of television’s favorite geeks.

Picture source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sheldon_Cooper.jpg

I used to love Beverly Hills 90210, even after it went off the air, and Andrea (played by Gabrielle Carteris) was one of my favorite characters. Well, after Dylan, who I had a huge crush on, of course. She was a major girl geek. She was painfully shy - almost so shy that it didn’t make sense that she was friends with such a popular crowd - and she was more likely to be seen with a book in her hands that out having fun with the rest of the gang.

She was class valedictorian in their graduating year, of course. But she surprised everyone by getting pregnant by the bartender that she fell in love with. She even married him but their marriage was doomed to fail.

I think I loved this character because she was a lot like me. She was quiet and never really believed that she was “good enough” for anything that happened to her. She was never really lonely though. She was happy to have her books and could spend hours by herself and would rather stay home to study than go to a party. Yes, I was that geeky girl, too.

Ok - I know that Lisa Simpson is a cartoon character!  But she is a role model for child girl geeks everywhere. She deserves some recognition. She’s someone worth emulating as far as I’m concerned (not that children should be watching The Simpsons!).

Lisa is the middle child of the Simpson family and is forever 8 years old. She is very smart and is known for playing the saxophone. She’s a vegetarian and a Buddhist and an advocate of the Tibetan independence movement. She’s an environmentalist, too.

Lisa, goes through bouts of melancholy but for the most part she likes who she is. She is kind to animals and tries her best to save the planet. She works hard at school and she has a diverse range of interests, including blues music. At times, she has tried to change to fit in, only to realize that you can’t change who you are inside.

At the beginning of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, Willow was a very shy girl. She was really smart but she was insecure and kind of nerdy. She started studying magic when she became friends with Buffy and over time, her magical skills developed. Sometimes her magic really worked, other times, not so much. She’s great at computer stuff and for 1998 that makes her a pretty big geek.

She played a major role in the series and was in every episode. Towards the later part of the show she falls in love with another woman, Tara, and becomes one of the most well known lesbian characters on television.

Picture source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alyson_Hannigan_London_2004.jpg

Abby is the very cool and sexy goth geek from the hit drama show, NCIS. She’s played by Pauley Perrette and has been on every episode of the show. Abby is the teams forensic specialist and she is an expert in DNA analysis, ballistics, and digital forensics. DiNozzo, one of the other main characters on the show, describes her as, “the happiest goth you’ll ever meet.”  She’s fascinated with the supernatural and death, which is really odd once you get to know her character because she is generally pretty happy.

Her ability to maneuver her way through all sorts of computer systems and software makes her a major geek. And her knowledge of seemingly mundane topics makes her extremely interesting. And she’s sexy to boot!

Picture source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pauley_Perrette_2009_2.jpg

Penelope Garcia (played by Kirsten Vagnsness) is one of my all time favorite geek chicks on television. She’s cute and she has a great sense of her own style (because very few other people could pull off that style) and she’s very emotional and sensitive. To distract her from the horrible things she sees on her computer every day she fills her office with “cute” - troll dolls and other similar figurines. She’s an optimist, despite all the horrors she has seen.

She plays online MMOG games and she can hack into any computer system. In fact, that is how she was found - she was recruited by the agency because she was supposedly caught trying to hack into the CIAs files looking for info on Princess Diana’s death to confirm conspiracy theories.

I'm such a big fan of Garcia that I named my computer after her!

How can anyone not love Spencer (played by Matthew Gray Gubler). His character has grown a lot throughout the life of the show. He’s a genius and much of his learning has come from stuff that he’s interested in and has learned on his own. He absorbs information and is one of those people who always has something to say about every subject (often at the annoyance of his co-workers). He’s always introduceds as “Dr. Reid” because of his age so that people will take him more seriously.

With an IQ of 187, he can read at 20,000 words per minute. He has 3 Ph.Ds in Mathematics, Engineering, and Chemistry. He also has a B.A. in Sociology and Psychology and is working on his third BA in Philosophy.