Love Bites Loves Geeky Girls

In a Weird turn of Events Love Bites Is Appealing to the Nerd Crowd

Upon further inspection, maybe the crowd appeal isn’t so strange. Greg Grunberg, the sort of star of Love Bites’ last major gig was on the nerdtastic Heroes as a Matt Parkman, a detective who could manipulate people’s brains. Before that he was Eric Weiss on long running J.J. Abrams project Alias. But are these roles enough to be cashing in the nerd vote on this rom-com venture?

Love Bites has an original structure, it’s an anthology show that follows 3 loosely connected vignettes about love, friendship, and relationships. On the surface the target audience seems to be more logically the romantic comedy type, maybe even the demographic that loves ABC’s Wednesday night comedies. It’s sort of quirky, edgy, and a little different and all about y’know, relationship stuff.

So why is Love Bites appealing to the nerds?

In the two weeks it’s been airing each episode has had one of the stories featuring a female character with fantastically nerdy qualities.

In week one, “Firsts” we were graced by the hilarious Kryten Ritter as Cassie. Hot on philosophizing new media, Cassie notes  that in a twitter world we have to sum ourselves up in 140 characters, to get noticed she needs her story.

She went to a bar with her pregnant (as a surrogate) friend Annie (Becki Newton) and sick of being outdone by her sweet, selfless, and very pregnant friend, she pretended she was a virgin to get the attention of a cute boy who was as it turns out, was pretending to be writing a book.

So the virgin thing was the hook, but once the pair got home it turned out that it was her true love of Battlestar Galactica that was the line & sinker of the relationship, and it was the mutual love of the re-imagined sci-fi series that would keep the couple together once both their secrets were out. The show made BSG ultimately be her thing, but I love that the segment wasn’t about Cassie overtly using her nerdlove to get attention from a hot nerd but letting that aspect of her character out when it made sense.

Krysten Ritter as Cassie, the faux-virgin but very real BSG nerd on Love Bites

Week two’s “How To…” featured guest star Michelle Trachtenberg, most recently known for the scheming Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl, Trachtenberg may be best known for the role that launched her career as Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn.  Trachtenberg’s casting is enough in its own right to get the most hardcore Whedonites on board.  Anyone who associates her too much with little Dawny was probably a little…confused. Watching your TV little sister get a lap dance and speak frankly about sex can throw you off a little.

Trachtenberg plays opposite Bret Harrison (whose credits include V and Reaper) in a battle of wills when her ill-timed banana bread scares him into breaking up with her using the “we’re better as friends” excuse. She calls bullshit on this and the war begins. The end of the story reveals her plan to torture her new “friend” with Katherine Heigl movies was a double edged sword as she can’t stand them either. Instead she is a self-professed horror nerd obsessed with the genre and confessing to owning volumes of monster movie DVDs at home.

Trachtenberg’s Jodie forces Charlie (Bret Harrison) to wield a brush & frenchbraid her hair

While the structure of the show still feels sort of strange, as a medium that is so often very character driven breaking up the stories into such isolated happenings takes getting used to. I really like that the ladies represent real interests that girls have, they’re allowed to love BSG & old horror flicks, have hobbies that are organic to their character. Interests that on TV are too are oft reserved for the cast of The Big Bang Theory.

I’m still puzzled as to what type of audience the show is going after, and how they’re going about it. Cast a wide net much? I’ll be watching to see if this trend continues, but based on the announced guest stars I’m thinking Love Bites just might be a hidden kinda nerdy, sorta romantic, comedic gem.

Tonight one of the guest stars will be internet sensation Isaiah Mustafa (The Old Spice Guy) and we’ve already seen Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development).

Have you watched Love Bites? Do these nerdy girls feel out of place in a Thursday night rom-com or do you feel like they well represent ladies who have a nerdy side?

Love Bites airs tonight (Thursdays) at 10pm on Global & NBC