Tuesday, January 04, 2005

How did I miss this ?

A number of us were fretting about how Numb3rs would caricature mathematicians, while NBC slipped this right under our noses:
NBC's new sitcom, "Committed," a series centered on the romance between Nate (Josh Cooke), an obsessive-compulsive math genius and his nutty girlfriend, Marni (Jennifer Finnigan), makes it clear: psychological disorders are the next big thing.
As for the character 'Nate':
Nate, a math genius whose family makes the Tennenbaums seem like the Partridge family, works in a used-record store and nurses his fixations: he has an obsessive fear of elevators, blocked emergency exits and throwing things out. One episode revolves around Nate's attempts to keep Marni from seeing his apartment, which looks like a cross between the CollyerBrothers' brownstone and the schizophrenic mathematician's garage in "A Beautiful Mind"
The review ends with this rather cruel jab:
Mr. Cooke is appealing in the role of Nate, but he seems a little wholesome for someone who makes Venn diagrams to map out a conversational point.
Hey ! Watch it there ! Us borderline-psychotic obsessive-compulsive math geeks have feelings too.

3 comments:

  1. In USA Today, they advertised Nate as a genius from a family of geniuses that go mad. Apparently he's trying to not go mad by being an underachiever (working in a videostore, I think). 

    Posted by didier

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  2. Gotta watch those venn diagrams! I wait for the day that a scientist is depicted as just a regular person. 

    Posted by gaw3

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think it could be fine, and here's why: Let S be the set of all TV shows, and let A... 

    Posted by Moebius Stripper

    ReplyDelete

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