[rufibarbatus]

That was true before the Seth Cohen effect (or more recently: the Big Bang Theory effect).

EDIT: in fact, I find the those fictional theoretical physicists' grasp of physics appalling — and I don't even pretend to know that much physics!

[TheCapn]

To fully explain all the physics they try to dabble in would take a show twice its length and less than half of the entertainment it already "provides".

The times they touch on topics I have actual experience in makes me cringe yes but its in the name of entertainment where it has to be fluffed to actually be interesting.

Take it this way.... the episodes where they play paintball there is so much unnecessarily wrong with the scenarios that it makes me facepalm almost every time. But when I look at it in the sense that doing the "real" thing would make it mind-numbingly boring I realize that I prefer it as it is.

They're exposing a lot of people to a world that most would have no interaction with (the sciences) and I personally feel that half-baked representation is better than nothing. (See: Argument people have for/against Mythbuster's contribution to the science community)

[rufibarbatus]

I agree with most of what you said. My edit to the comment obscured its main point, which was: the expression "true geek" has shifted away from its previous meaning (again).

My point being: we were geek before it was cool.

(Come to think of it, that might not be totally acurate either. The "proud geek" generations of the 80s and 90s, though slightly marginal to mainstream culture, at least were proud to wear the moniker. Before that there were the labeled geek generations, to whom the word was indeed a very uncool slur. Maybe I'm closer to the Seth Cohen generation than I'd care to admit.)