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  • The entire Fan-Preferred Couple shipping of manly series lead Oliver Queen with geeky, perky computer girl Felicity Smoak on Arrow is pretty much based and built on this trope.
  • Cobra Kai has awkward, nerdy Demetri end up with the attractive Alpha Bitch Yasmine by Season 3. It helped that they are actually very similar - both are snarky and condescending, but have a Hidden Heart of Gold. Part of this also comes down to Yasmine mellowing out after suffering a humiliating wedgie.
  • In One Tree Hill the character of Mouth—who used to be geeky comic relief—gradually evolved into a full-fledged character. Mouth throughout the years has not not only became one of the more popular kids but is also given plenty of hot girlfriends, one being an office affair with his boss. The writer admits that he feels a lot of sympathy towards kids like Mouth and even claimed the character resembles himself in some ways. And now Mouth is in a relationship with Millicent (who's somewhat geeky herself).
  • Power Rangers
    • In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Billy got more romantic subplots than any other ranger.
    • The final pairings of Power Rangers Jungle Fury (Theo/Lily and Dominic/Fran) went along these lines as well, both of the alternative options (Casey and Maryl respectively) being more conventionally "normal" compared to their rivals.
  • Hot bimbo Leeta and total dork/technical genius Rom in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Even other characters don't understand.
  • The Drew Carey Show, with Drew and just about every woman he dates, with a few exceptions like Wanda Sykes, and the much-older Shirley Jones. See also the page quote, from one of his standup routines.
  • Seinfeld
    • Jerry Seinfeld regularly brought home supermodels. One could at least argue a funnyman with a reasonably successful career could do well.
    • When asked how George Costanza could get so many attractive women, Jason Alexander put it down to persistence (indeed in one episode, George's persistence makes one woman who previously wasn't interested at all want to date him).
    • Kramer, an unemployed, slightly shady Cloud Cuckoo Lander who woos women (including nuns and lesbians) into his embrace with the power of Kavorka.
  • Fargo the ubergeek in Eureka hooks up with two geeky girls. The first is Claudia. He impressed her by turning one of their artefacts into a lightsaber. The second is Holly, a fellow computer geek at Global Dynamics.
  • The entire premise of the live-action Japanese series Densha Otoko which chronicles the attempts of a weakling, nerdy, geeky, otaku-type guy who is trying to date a beautiful woman with the assistance of a messaging board on the internet, after he saved her from a drunk guy on a train. Based on a real story. Also available in manga form as train_man.
  • Married... with Children originally had Marcy and Steve Rhoades. She was hot, he was a nerd. Later reversed when Marcy married the amazingly hot Jefferson Darcy
  • This was, in fact, the central gimmick of the 1992 FOX series Flying Blind, in which Neil, a shy, repressed nebbish played by Corey Parker, somehow fell into a mutually fulfilling relationship with Alicia, an incredibly hot bohemian woman played by Tea Leoni. The series slightly bucked the trope by keeping the couple unmarried, which allowed the constant implicit tension of the possibility that Alicia would come to her senses and leave him.
  • On Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson has the best romantic record in the group. He picked up a wife in the original film, and also spent over 50 years with Vala in the finale.
  • Rodney and Jennifer Keller in Stargate Atlantis. When he takes Keller to a science presentation on Earth, his colleagues initially think she's his (also attractive) sister. On the flight back, she is the one who suggests they join the Mile-High Club, although it could've just been to shut him up.
  • Both The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart paired Bob's character with an improbably attractive wife.
  • On Bones
    • Dr. Hodgins starts out as a complete geek who is totally in love with, out of his league, Angela. Despite her initial refusal at his advances she finally agrees to go out with him. The two eventually go on to get married and have a child.
  • That '70s Show. Eric: thin, geeky-looking teenage boy. Donna: tall, strapping, gorgeous redhead (with beautiful skin, too).
  • Friends:
    • Palaeontologist Ross and the socialite Rachel are the show's lead examples, and had this dynamic going back to high school where he was the nerd and she was the Lovable Alpha Bitch, who barely noticed him. As adults she's a sweet woman former Gold Digger who eventually goes to work in fashion and he becomes a university professor.
    • The producers did admit that the character designed to be the group geek was actually Chandler, not Ross. However, Chandler heavily downplays his job, skirts over his geekier hobbies (such as his Star Trek obsession), and never discusses his education, leaving Ross to be the main target for ribbing. The few comments he does make about his career make it obvious he's a statistician by training and an IT statistics specialist by career. The entire gang act as though Chandler is far beneath Monica and that Monica could do far better than settling for him. At one point Phoebe and Rachel even try setting Monica up with other men. Chandler himself has such huge self-esteem issues that he's as convinced of his unworthiness as the rest of the gang. The oddity of the gang's attitude about this is very stark when considering the following: in-universe, Chandler is considered the funniest of the gang, the sweetest (and "softest") of the guys, has a very successful career and is also handsome to boot (in-universe, he's universally regarded as "cute"). This actually makes him the best catch out of the entire cast. What makes the pairing work, is that although Monica isn't a traditional 'geek', she's the most intelligent of the girls and her highly neurotic nature (playing with her label maker, categorizing her towels and ironing wrapping paper, are a only a few examples) offsets Chandler's nerdiness. So their acceptance of each other foibles is a two way street and very believable. Plus, only Rachel and Phoebe imply Chandler doesn't deserve Monica and that seems motivated jealousy. The rest of the gang acknowledge Monica is more attractive but know Monica can be as quirky as Chandler at times. As the relationship progresses you see Chandler grow more confident as she builds up his self-esteem. By the end he's more open about his geeky habits (like his love for musicals) and clearly happier in such a fulfilling relationship. His crippling insecurity mostly stems from his own self-doubt and previous failed relationships.
  • Smallville
    • A rare male-hottie/female geek version of this trope with Chloe Sullivan and her crush on Clark.
    • And then they bring it back to make geek/female hottie with her relationship with Jimmy Olsen. Notably, this is also how the Clark/Lana relationship was portrayed in Season 1, with geeky outcast Clark pursuing uber-popular Lana and trying to show her that he was more worthy than her then-current Jerk Jock boyfriend Whitney.
    • In her very first episode, Lois notes the kind of guy she's attracted to: "Give me a nerd with glasses any day." Martha helpfully replies "Clark has many sides."
  • Charlie and Amita on NUMB3RS. It's true she's a computer geek, but she's a smoking hot computer geek.
  • Chuck:
    • Chuck and Sarah (and Jill and Lou and Hannah...) Granted, he's Hollywood Homely, but still he's an ubergeek with a dead-end job at a big-box electronics retailer.
    • In another episode, one of Sarah's former classmates (also a hottie) shows up with a nerd husband. However, it's revealed that she doesn't much care for him and only married him because she reasoned that nerds are the ones who end up making the big bucks (she thinks that Sarah's doing the same with Chuck). She got really pissed off when he decided to do the right thing instead of making money. Cue the Designated Girl Fight.
    • There's also Morgan and Alex (pissing off Casey to no end)... and Morgan and Carina (although it was just one night).
  • Arguably inverted in Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Sabrina and Harvey. It's true that the pretty, blonde, funny, Sabrina has a lot of dorky interests (science, maths, high school journalism...). Harvey on the other is a popular jock (though not a jerk). This is reversed in the animated series, where Harvey is a nerdy weirdo… who has girls fighting over him anyway.
  • In CSI: NY it's an inversion as female geek hottie Lindsay ends up with male hottie Danny.
    • Original CSI has Grissom, who’s the geeky guy and Sara, geeky and plain but still attractive. She’s a geek too.
  • The Reality Show Beauty and the Geek reinforced why this could be Truth in Television. By the end of the show first season, many of the Beauties were gushing about how their Geek was one of the best guys they'd ever met, when only one or two of said Geeks were conventionally good looking (though, admittedly, none of them were particularly gruesome either). One "beauty" and one "geek" had a brief romance during their season.
  • The Big Bang Theory
    • Leonard and Penny. In earlier seasons, Leonard was sporadically paired with the equally geeky Leslie Winkle, but it's Penny he fixated on and she gradually began to return his feelings. After they broke up Leonard started a brief relationship with Raj's sister, Indian bombshell Priya. However, Leonard and Penny still cared about each other and evetually reconciled and married.
    • Averted with Howard Wolowitz, the show's resident Casanova Wannabe who regularly strikes out with most of the hot babes he tries to pick up, before hooking up with the adorable Bernadette.
    • Played with extensively with Sheldon, who in one episode was shown to have a tendency to attract pretty grad-students with his intellect alone (some may be just from his Child Prodigy status). But given that he is generally asexual he ends up as a Clueless Chick-Magnet. Later on in the series he finds a Distaff Counterpart in Amy Farrah Fowler, similarly brilliant with just as much if not more social awkwardness. After an initial She Is Not My Girlfriend phase, they later make a Relationship Upgrade as they are the only two people who could possibly tolerate each others idiosyncrasies.
  • In 3rd Rock from the Sun, Officer Don Orville (A really big dork of a small town police officer) ends up with Sally Solomon, who is supermodel beautiful. Ironically, she loves him because she thinks he's everything he says he is, despite the fact that as a professional soldier, she should be able to tell he's not. Or perhaps it's just the fact that whenever the two are alone, the tone of the show switches to Film Noir. Plus they figured out that he has to always be in uniform too.
  • In Freaks and Geeks, Sam Weir is finally able to start dating his dream girl, cheerleader Cindy Sanders. She decides to give him a chance because her last boyfriend was a Jerk Jock and he's a Dogged Nice Guy, assuming that means he'll just do whatever she tells him. While they like each other just fine, it turns out that they don't have all that much in common, and Sam realizes he's unhappy catering to her and breaks it off, shocking her as she (and everyone else) considers herself out of his league. They eventually conclude that they're Better as Friends.
  • Primeval has Connor and Abby. Nerdy, awkward Connor Temple and hot, ass-kicking Abby Maitland.
  • On 15/Love Rick was socially inept Butt-Monkey. Cassidy was a very attractive British tennis star.
  • Degrassi
    • Sav Bandhari tends to be a bit socially awkward, but ends up having a rather storied love life.
    • Liberty and Toby were both this trope in the earlier seasons too, although Toby was gradually Demoted to Extra.
  • Glee had this with ditzy cheerleader Brittany and geeky wheelchair using Artie. They end up breaking up when he makes a remark about her being as stupid as everyone thought.
  • Subverted in 90210. Beautiful Lovable Alpha Bitch Naomi falls for geeky Max but (to her amazement) he's initially disinterested because he views her as a shallow airhead. She has to work hard to get him to realize she has Hidden Depths and the show makes it clear that Max has had a healthy romantic life before they even met.
  • Saved by the Bell : The ultimate geek, right down to his nickname, Samuel "Screech" Powers had several one-episode love interests, often played by extremely beautiful actresses (Hillary Danner, Emma Caulfield, Christina Moore, Marnette Patterson). In one story arc, Screech had a recurring girlfriend named Alison, played by the lovely Clare Salstrom. Even his "nerdy" girlfriend, Violet, was played by Tori Spelling, although she wore thick glasses and a dorky hairstyle and clothes for the role.
  • Freddie in iCarly. Is quite the geek, especially in the episodes he is paired with Sam. With Carly it is more a geeky turn-on.
  • Alan Harper on Two and a Half Men ends up with several hotties over the course of the show(though not as many as Charlie of course).
  • House of Anubis so much for both Fabian (the shy, nerdy guy who can hardly talk to people on some occasions without stammering) AND Alfie (the class clown obsessed with aliens, zombies, ninjas, etc.) Fabian has had two girls desperate for his attention and love, and Alfie had not only dated the beautiful blonde, but also has two other romantic interests as well. Seems the ladies in the house love the geeks.
  • In the Royal Pains episode "Ta Da..." we meet Magic Andy, a professional stage magician played by character actor Tony Hale (who has made a career of playing nerds and geeks like Buster Bluth in Arrested Development and Emmett Milbarge in Chuck). While Magic Andy bemoans the fact that girls aren't interested in him at all, by the end of the episode, he's started a relationship with Betty, who works as a waiter for a caterer who handles the same sort of parties Andy gets hired to perform at. She's been watching Andy's show's for a while, and thinks he's an amazing performer. And handsome. And cute.
  • Both subverted and played straight on Everything's Gonna Be Okay. On the one hand, nerdy Matilda's efforts to win over hunky jock Luke fail because she bluntly admits that her attraction to him is based on his appearance. On the other hand, she later decides to literally give the even geekier Drea and Jeremy a chance - simultaneously. Jeremy panics, unsure of how he'd go about making out with two girls simultaneously, but Drea eagerly takes Matilda up on her offer.
  • The reality TV show Average Joe had geeky and/or average-looking men vie for the attentions of a beautiful woman who was initially upset that her suitors weren't the conventionally handsome men she was expecting but learned that they weren't all that bad once you got to know them. However, the message behind this was seriously undermined by the once-per-season twist of a group of conventionally handsome men being brought in halfway through the season to compete with the Average Joes and at least one season ended with the woman picking one of the handsome men instead of an Average Joe.

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