Beauty vs. Geek destroys many of the dynamics that caused individual development in previous seasons. First of all, pitting beauties against the geeks just re-creates a high school atmosphere. The cool kids hang out with the cool kids, and the nerds hang out with the nerds, with little crossover. The geeks already know how to hang with geeks, that does not put them out of their comfort zone at all. Many of the beauties expressed their distaste with Jonathan's velociraptor imitation. Another said he was not cute. What if one of the beauties was his partner and had to learn to put up with him? They might see his good qualities as well.  Leticia and a few of the other girls hung out with the geeks in this episode, but was that because the girls lost the challenge? In this episode, some beauties learned the important lesson of leading a guy on to get what they want. The geeks are not really learning to relate to women, they are relating to them in the same way they always have been. Women are manipulating them or being cast by them as evil shrews that are not worth getting to know anyway.

The challenges in previous seasons were better tailored to the aims of the show. Beauty challenges would usually be mentally stimulating or involve approaching a situation without beauty. Previous challenges include teaching grade school subjects and getting the most phone numbers after a "make-under". Geek challenges were generally social skill challenges and learning to deal with the fairer sex challenges. Former challenges include getting the highest score on a blind date and giving the best massage.

This season's challenges cannot hope to help the participants much if they continue to be Beauty vs. Geek. The first one was a contest for which team could get the most phone numbers. The handicap was that the girls received "make-unders". That was a successful enough challenge with good lessons for both sides, but this week's was a talent show and next week's is a game of flag football. The geeks performed admirably in the talent show, but I'm sorry, that does not make you any less geeky. It might make you geekier in fact. The girls may have learned an important lesson from their failure, but it does not look like it. After Amber was eliminated she said she was not going to change. She was a beauty and going to use that for as long as she had that and that she was still going to be bitch. It is clear this experience really helped her — helped her enforce all the stereotypes she was already living with.

Previews for next week promise yet another change to the game. I hope that it will be something to put the show back on track.