The seven coolest geeks on television

TV Squad - Santa Monica, CA, USA - Geeks get treated pretty badly in the media. Thanks to the fact that most people who get above-the-line credit in Hollywood are anything but geeky, when a script calls for a socially maladjusted character, it's almost always a terrible caricature of true geek culture. For years little geeklings only had the likes of Steve Urkel to look up to and that's not right (believe me, Jaleel White, when the geek revolution comes, you'll be the first one guillotined).

The fact that I'm about to become the father of my own little geek-spawn has led me to start looking around the current TV landscape, looking for appropriate geek role models. I was surprised to find so many...

At first, the idea of a "cool geek" seems like a contradiction in terms (like "jumbo shrimp" or "happily married"), but it's not as crazy as it sounds. Being cool is more a function of being comfortable in your own skin than it is having great looks or a really nice wardrobe (at least that's what my mother told me when I came home crying from the 6th grade dance). So, if a geek can retain the essential elements of his geekiness while simultaneously presenting to the world a confident air, they can achieve the title "cool geek".