“Nerds, we’ve got a show!” So says Wil Wheaton in the premiere episode of The Wil Wheaton Project (henceforth TWWP), which is SyFy’s foray into the clip show territory of Tosh.0 and The Soup. Because you can’t have too many clip shows (thank you very much, Rob Dyrdek). There’s a bit of a twist, as indicated by the Wheaton quote above: it’s a clip show, but by and for nerds —or geeks, if you prefer or insist (let’s please just not fight about it). But relax, you won’t need to deal in Magic: The Gathering cards or shout “Excelsior!” regularly to enjoy the show. It’s a pretty standard clip show which, nerd or not, may end up being a problem.
To be fair, Wheaton and Hardwick are old roommates and old hands at web curation of all things nerd and geek. And Wheaton’s worked in Hollywood for over twenty years, so it’s no surprise that he called on a few actor buddies to join him from time to time. My concern is that if you roll out a show that, while not in direct timeslot competition with others of its nature will nonetheless be compared to others of its nature, you might not want to make the comparison for us. But this is kind of what happens when Hardwick drops in and tells Wheaton that he’s there to support him, then promptly plugs his (Hardwick’s) show, @Midnight, which also involves riffing on pop culture, but with comedians like Marc Maron. It’s like hanging an arrow-shaped sign with the words “Right This Way” on it.
