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SyFy Launches Late Night Geek Fest

  Bitter Staff /   July 17, 2015 /   Critic /   1 Comment

This week SyFy launched two new late night shows, Geeks Who Drink (Thursday, 11/10c) and Reactor (Thursday, 11:30/10:30c)

Geeks Who Drink launches SyFy into the game show market, but with a geeky slant. Given how well the off-screen version of the show has done, it seems like a good bet to put it on the teevee.

geeks-who-drink_ZacharyLevi

Zachary Levi hosting Geeks Who Drink

Hosted by Zachary Levi, watching the show is a lot like watching geeky pub trivia. The contestants themselves are the most significant driver of the show’s tone. A celebrity geek leads each team of three. In the premier episode, Eric Christian Olsen from NCIS: Los Angeles and Friday Night Lights’ Scott Porter head up the two teams.

Geeks Who Drink episode one teams: Tequila Mockingbird & Han Solo Cups

Geeks Who Drink, Premier episode teams: Tequila Mockingbird & Han Solo Cups

If you enjoy geek culture and traditional teevee game shows, this show is for you. While I watched the show at 7am to get this review out in a timely fashion, not-so-silent partner stood behind me, yelling out answers to the questions and high-fiving her own awesomeness when she got them right. She also screamed out “this show is incredible” at some point in the festivities, so take that as you will. As someone less in love with teevee game shows, but who always enjoys a good pub-trivia night, the show left me wishing for an interactive component, perhaps indicating that I should quit my bitchin’ and go to one of the many available Geeks Who Drink quiz nights near me.

Reactor is kind of like The Soup, but with its own excellent genre-focused slant. Turns out, this is freakin’ fantastic. David Huntsberger is our newest favorite late night host. Hitting the right comedic note that mocks the ridiculous but also demonstrates his enthusiasm for the genre, we were instantly charmed.

Reactor_hero_davidmakingstuff

Host of Reactor, David Huntsberger

Our favorite segment? “All the News Fit To Blast,” in which Huntsberger recaps some truly geeky news, including one of the best stories of the week, the mega-robot challenge.

We were also pretty psyched about the interview segment, when guest Kevin Durand was peppered with hypothetical questions including the ever popular: would you rather communicate telepathically with hamsters or levitate one inch off the ground? These genre-themed questions cracked up both the audience and the participants, giving viewers a way of relating to the guest.

The show concluded with what we really hope will be a regular feature, “The Week’s Most Ridiculous Death Scene.”

Fine, we loved it all! We can’t choose a favorite segment. We reveled in the geekiness, the absurdity, all the things!!!

SyFy, you’ve really hit it out of the ballpark this summer, what with the space bounty hunters of Killjoys and Dark Matter and now this late night geek fest. We know you were conflicted for awhile, but maybe you’ve finally embraced your own inner geek?

Filed Under: Critic Tagged With: geeks who drink, reactor, SyFy

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