The Geniuses of Television and What They Tell Us

In their world, they are the social outcasts. Here, they are adored by the fanbase. They have the darkest stories, and the most brilliant minds.

What would a great television series be without a tortured genius? The nerd, the socially awkward doctor, the new type of protagonist that has long taken over the good old knight in shining armour, these are the characters worth creating storylines for.

Who am I thinking of here?

Firstly, of course, a pioneer of the genre; the venerable character of Sherlock Holmes. Since this isn't a comparison of old literature, this will refer to the newest incarnation of the famous consulting detective - the main character of BBC's 2010 series Sherlock.
Secondly, a character whose personality is worthy of a hundred more separate articles: the misanthropic, ever-suffering, superficially immature cynical genius of Dr Gregory House, a diagnostician ingeniously created by David Shore for his 2004-2012 show House, M.D..

Of course, there are others. However, I feel that the characters of Dr Spencer Reid and Dr Sheldon Cooper, who would definitely make it onto this list, are in many ways exaggerated for comic purposes, and I don't have enough experience to talk about other shows, I suppose. (I decided that Spock and Data can't be included on account of not being human.)

So, what do these two have in common? Technically, one might argue that a comparison between the two is hardly fair, since we know that House was based on the original Holmes, and the new BBC Holmes was greatly influenced by House, but that makes it all the easier to point out the stereotypes.
Because I am lazy, I simply made a table to show similar characteristics of the two:

Sherlock Holmes	Dr Gregory House
Officially diagnosed as a 'high-functioning sociopath'	Is constantly being described as sociopathic
Famous for his mastery of the art of deduction; his reasoning skills and the logic he applies	Brilliantly combines and deduces to find the most logical diagnosis possible
Indifferent towards his clients; only cares about the mystery and solving the crime	Barely every visits his patients; only interested in solving the medical puzzles his team presents him with
Able to 'read' people by the most insignificant aspects of their appearance	Has been known to analyse people by not only their behaviour, but also their shoes
Incredibly bored with 'normal' life - to the extent of shooting holes into his wall	Only takes cases he deems interesting (medical mysteries no one else could solve)
A "proper genius" - for example, he knows the entire map of the city of London by heart and can even calculate for the traffic lights.	Speaks six languages including Russian, Hindi and Mandarin and can diagnose most diseases in the clinic with less than a glance at the patient
Plays the violin	Plays the piano
Has a best friend - Dr John Watson - who is also his roommate and the only person he doesn't keep at a far distance	Has a best friend - Dr James Wilson - who is also temporarily his roommate and the only person he doesn't keep at a far distance

A bored Sherlock shoots the wall.

And the list goes on. As we can see, it is rather obvious that Holmes and House share the majority of their character traits. We also know that both Sherlock and House, M.D. are among the most popular television series - Sherlock is a little newer, but I couldn't think of anyone my age or above who has never heard of Dr House.

Anyway - now what is it that makes these characters so popular among the fans? They are far from athletic, neither rich nor tanned, don't exactly run around with no shirt on and don't have a muscular chest to be exposed anyway. They don't get the ladies, they are simply not cool.

First of all, television seems to have established an awful lot of genius clichés and stereotypes that puts these people into a certain category and assigns them a stack of certain characteristics. But what are these stereotypes, and why do we find them intriguing? The brilliant website Television Tropes has actually made a list HERE, but it is rather lengthy, so I will summarise it.

• Social isolation is a MUST-HAVE.
• An intelligent person doesn't know how to act in social situations.
• What the hell is empathy?
• An intelligent person is consumed with what they are interested in (in this case, crimes and medicine) and don't care about other things.
• An intelligent person doesn't understand feelings and also probably has none or at least can't express them. 
• An intelligent person must have at least one amusing quirk - for example, Dr Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds doesn't shake hands with others, and Dr Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory only sits in 'his' spot on the couch. 
• Relating to the popular quirks, the common television genius has managed to transform Asperger's Syndrome and hypochondria into a number one comic relief method.
• In order to be interesting to watch on the telly, an intelligent person that appears in a drama series should have as dark a past as possible - we learn very early about the abuse House suffered through his father, or that Dr Reid was left to live alone with his severely schizophrenic mother before reaching high school.  
• A great deal of narcissism and arrogance are necessary, because otherwise there wouldn't be enough snarky conversations to laugh about.
• The genius has problems dealing with the fact that he or she is the only one who uses words like anthropomorphise on a daily basis, ideally to describe his or her breakfast
• The common genius has no concern for clothing and looks (although attractiveness is kind of unavoidable on television).
• The television genius has Übermensch-like abilities when it comes to his area of expertise (e.g. solving crimes), but shouldn't be good at other things (e.g. sports), otherwise it would become too boring after all.

These are just some of the few stereotypes television has set up for us - a list of things that go through the Western mind as soon as we see a person that happens to wear glasses, has an interest in physics or happens to read a nonfiction book.
Do these lead to self-fulfilling prophecies? The answer, sadly, tends to be yes. If someone is expected to be mysteriously devoid of social skills, why would we even try and talk to him? You heard this guy took all three sciences in high school? He's probably some self-obsessed arrogant weirdo. She has frizzy hair and speaks for languages - why try bonding, she probably doesn't want a social life.

Even more so, pretty much every single TV genius has shown us that being smart gives everyone a special VIP privilege to ignore ethical guidelines, hurt feelings, behave like children and generally insult others and ignore superiors. House is the prime example for this, but there are others, such as Cal Lightman or Patrick Jane. You can afford to be a cranky, misanthropic twat - because you're always, without fail and every time, right.

A helpful guide to House, M.D.

There is another problem with the genius image. First of all, how does House solve all his cases? Right, with a sudden epiphany, usually while talking about something entirely unrelated like monster trucks with his best and only friend Wilson. We don't see House sweating over medical dictionaries, frantically searching for a solution. Castle's Nathan Fillion suddenly finds the murderer while talking to his daughter over breakfast.

Basically, the 'common' minds - us little, insignificant people who only speak one or two languages, only have one PhD and a number of friends outside of work - are being told that these borderline supernaturally talented people have the answer inside their heads the entire time: they just need someone to ask the right question at the right time. How do they do it?, the common mind asks. I don't see them working hard! It answers itself just a moment later: Smart people don't need to work that hard... either that, or they just always worked harder than us.

So the basic message of smartness on television is that either, you are simply not as intelligent as the eccentric doctor, or you were somehow too lazy to get multiple degrees at Yale and/or Oxford at the age of 20, master five different languages, win several awards with your best-selling novels and also be a handsome yoga practitioner with a beautiful girlfriend. Either way, you failed your life.

Let me summarise the message of a typical television genius in a few useful bullet points. For more of a rant on the subject, check out this brilliant little article HERE.

• Even if you're smart, you can't be as smart (or good-looking) as them
• You're either too stupid or you don't work hard enough
• You can't be friends with a smart person, they don't know how to socialise.
• Smart people don't want friends.
• If you're smart, it's okay to be mean. You have the unique privilege to be hurtful and insulting and spread misery wherever you go, if you please to do so.

But we shouldn't forget that the TV genius is still a character among a group of characters. Yes, we enjoy watching a good medical drama or crime show - I definitely do. But let's be honest - who watches House, M.D. to catch up on immunology? Do we really only care about who the murderer is? I think it's important to keep in mind that most producers try really hard to give their character at least a certain humanity. Nobody would watch a TV show that makes it impossible to identify with the protagonists.
The episodes in which we can empathise with a character's personal drama, especially season finales, without fail receive higher ratings than any others.

So yes, geniuses on television are greatly influenced by major stereotypes and are depicted as unnaturally, superhumanly talented and gifted. Now to come back to my original question regarding what makes these characters so much more intriguing than any other type of protagonist. Personally, I believe that while we are bombarded with all these messages that might destroy our confidence completely, the human race also gains a certain pleasure from watching the 'different' people struggle. We laugh about Sheldon Cooper's plain weirdness and sigh in relief that we're not weird like that. We see that House feels so miserable he becomes addicted to painkillers. In the end, I think the message we get balances out - a sweet, exhilarating mixture between disappointment in the face of one's own incompetence, mixed with relief at falling within the bell curve of normality and spiced with varying amounts of sympathy towards the character. Quite frankly, the tortured genius is more interesting. In that regard, us normal people are like House - we care about the twisted, fascinating cases that can't be solved just by looking.

The point, I can't find the point! To stop this from becoming more of a ramble than it already is, I will simply end this by saying that I personally love both Dr House and Sherlock Holmes, and that I despise stereotypes about people that were born with a higher-than-average IQ or do some things differently. Lastly, I think TV series that have a common genius may be defined by that character, but they will also focus on human emotions; because that is the key trigger to get the ratings up.