TV Genius: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

If a character becomes smarter, for instance through a [[Transformation Ray]], [[Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum|they'll instantly acquire all sorts of knowledge that they never actually learned at any point.]] Someone who becomes suddenly smarter may also suddenly acquire a lab coat and [[Nerd Glasses]] and start speaking like [[Spock Speak|Mr. Spock]], though this is usually limited to the more comedic examples. They may learn to appreciate their 'normalness' from the inner unhappiness that comes from being too smart for one's own good.

 

 

 

See also: [[Science Is Bad]], [[Dumb Is Good]], [[Straw Vulcan]]. When done intentionally (and everyone in the story realizes too that the person is not a real genius) it is [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]].

* The Geographer in ''[[The Little Prince]]'', who gets all his very circumscribed knowledge from books and never leaves his desk.

* Doctor Enrique Borgos in "A Civil Campaign" is a brilliant biochemist who created a microbial suite that, when encased inside genetically engineered hive minded insects, could turn any cheap biomass into an almost perfect food source (and he's already planning strains of bugs that will churn out plastics and such in the future). He also had to be sprung from debtor's prison after financing his projects by selling shares in the original enterprise to about, oh... 800%, his original Butter Bug models were so hideous that a professional designer had to create something truly glorious to offset the prejudiced revulsion people had to eating ANYTHING that came out of the hybrid cockroach/pimple things, and he thinks that the way to appeal to a woman is to write her poetry... i.e. to rewrite his doctoral thesis in sonnet form. (And he STILL gets the girl in the end. Just not that particular one...)

* The Laputan intellectuals in ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', depicted as so wrapped up in their thoughts that they had servants to alert them when someone was talking to them, when someone was expecting a reply from them, when they were in danger of bumping into something, etc. Arguably rises to the level of [[The Rainman]], except for being cultural trait rather than an individual disability.

 

 

* This is apparently the ''entire premise'' of [[CBS]]'s sitcom ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]''.

** The fans have so many theories on the state of Sheldon's mind. You can pick any combination out of Asperger's Syndrome (or several other autism spectrum disorders,) Nonverbal Learning Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive ''Personality'' Disorder, Narcisstic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder (in an unusual but not unheard of form,) Histrionic Personality Disorder, acquired brain injury to the frontal lobe...

*** To reiterate, in a show where three of the five main characters have at least one doctorate (Penny has a high school diploma, while Howard only has a masters) and most of the recurring characters are university professors or otherwise in highly technical fields, Sheldon is universally regarded as incomprehensibly bizarre.

* The main protagonist of the Fox TV series ''[[Bones]]'' started as a textbook example of this trope, but in later scenes showed a more realistic backstory, a love of Foreigner and Cindy Lauper, and slowly growing appreciation for her [[Book Dumb]] partner Booth's intuitive people skills. Her status is mostly justified by her childhood trauma, reliance on anthropological explanations over psychology and normal social skills, and aversion to any kind of imprecision.

** Also, Malcolm is really irritated by his classmates who exhibit stereotypical nerdish behaviour.

* Billy of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]''. He is very upset from getting a "B", yet he received the grade because he didn't have even an elementary school level knowledge of insects. There's also Dr. K of ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', but she's justified as essentially being [[For Science!|Raised For Science!]] and being very [[No Social Skills|screwed up]] as a result.

** Though at least they give an explanation for how he suddenly had knowledge he couldn't possibly have acquired normally.

** He also ''gained'' social skills, whereas he had none before, and became much more confident. He successfully hit on Troi.

* The [[Mad Scientist]], electronics designing genius who escaped from the CIA in the first season of [[Chuck]]. We don't get to see him when he's on his meds, but when he's off them, he's quite dangerous. Also, kinda twitchy. Good at manipulating people. Or at least Chuck.

* An episode of ''[[Burn Notice]]'' gives us a delusional genius. He's really good at seeing patterns, deduces that the hero is a spy, has discovered that a traitor is selling secrets (and getting American soldiers/spies killed). Also, he warns the good guys to be careful, because "That bitch is an alien". ([[Fun with Subtitles|She's probably not an alien.]])

* Reid from ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' takes this to a whole new level, being a culmination of literally everything, without exception, in the description for this trope - right down to the vague [[Star Trek]] reference (not surprisingly, the only pop culture phenomenon he knows is [[Star Trek]]). It's even implied in the show that he might have a form of high-functioning autism.

 

 

== Webcomics ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* The title character of ''[[Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius]]'' is an elementary school student who is not only excessively prone to [[Techno Babble]] and [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]], but has invented time travel, faster-than-light warp engines, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and the best candy in the history of all existence and everything.]] [[Throw It In|Also,]] he has a [[My Brain Is Big|giant head.]]

* ''[[Ben 10]]'' has a morph, Grey Matter, that greatly increases his intelligence. As Grey Matter, Ben knows a lot of information that he couldn't possibly know, speaks in unnecessarily long words (unlike his usual, typical ten-year-old method of speech), and appears to lose common sense and the ability to talk to normal people (when asked "where are you?" he begins to give information that could find his geographical position, such where he is in reference to a mountain, until prompted for the name of a street).

** ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' has an arguably more straight example in Brainstrom. While Grey Matter knows more and speaks longer, the Ben personality doesn't change, as shown when Ben says "How do I know that?/I have no idea what I'm talking about". Brainstrom adapts a British accent, uses words simply because they are longer and not because they have any scientific value at hand, and becomes much more arragont in how smart he is.

** [[Justified Trope]]. Dexter is less than ten years old (one episode dealt with him getting promoted to the fifth grade). Spending so much time and effort maintaining a secret lab, he just wouldn't have much opportunity to associate with other people. Combined with his non-physical nature, he would have been viewed as a weird outsider. When he does have to work with others, he tends to be arrogant, but has fairly normal friendships. He just doesn't have many, and spends most of his time alone.

* Averted in an episode of ''[[Doug]]''. Skeeter, who'd always been the goofy sidekick type, takes an IQ test and scores incredibly high. Over the course of the episode, he is studied by scientists and gets into college (from the elementary-school setting of the series). This revelation goes largely ignored in most later Nickelodeon episodes, the Disney series has Skeeter's genius IQ play a role in a few other plots. However, at no point in either series does his personality change from [[The Ditz]].

* Similarly subverted with Richie of ''[[Static Shock]]''. After he gains [[Super Intelligence]], he doesn't really act any differently from how he did before. He becomes much more [[Gadgeteer Genius|invested in building various gadgets]], but even that behavior was present since the beginning of the series.

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' does this with [[The Hills|Lauren Conrad]].

** Martin Prince.

** Another episode had Homer gaining a genius-level IQ {{spoiler|eventually revealed to be 105 (which is completely average in reality but apparently very smart for a character in [[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]], an increase of 50 points}} after the removal of a crayon lodged in his brain. It also affected his already poor social skills, at least the ones that were actually endearing.

*** Lisa does at very least have [[Insufferable Genius]] qualities and on occasion is rather blindly obnoxious and self serving in her ethics, to the point of being a [[Soapbox Sadie]]. She also has some obvious [[Innocent Prodigy|childlike follies]] on occasion. These flaws obviously became less significant as the rest of the cast was Flanderized excessively but her shortcomings still show on occasion.

* Brainy Smurf from ''[[The Smurfs]]'', with his [[Nerd Glasses]] and library full of self-written books, is arrogant and condescending, always ready to boast about his vast intellect while being a top-notch [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]] and generally useless.

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}