I like Comedy Central, because it's good to never be more than a few minutes away from Saturday Night Live sketches. If I think of it, I'll tape "South Park," or "Insomniac." "Beat the Geeks," however, is appointment television at my house. I drop whatever I'm doing for a half-hour for this show. Sometimes literally.

On the show, normal humans must slog their way through movie, music, and TV trivia questions. Then they have to answer questions back and forth against the Geek of their chosen topic. The humans get easy questions: "Who is this?" with a picture of Tom Hanks. The geek questions are hard-core to the bone: name Hanks' first 4 films, and their directors.

You don't watch to see how much the humans know. You watch to see the Geeks conquer them with the vast amounts of trivia lodged in their brains, or to see the geeks cast down by missing a small detail. Success on the show doesn't come from human achievement, but from geek failure.

Far from ridiculing geekism, the show honors it, and sets it above all other pursuits. The three main geeks are called "the ultimate gods of trivia knowledge," and they enter the "Geek Arena" through a cloud of smoke. The main geeks, Movie, TV, and Music, have personality. They're funny about their chosen topics, and they're sarcastic and witty. You don't have to be a particular brand of geek to enjoy the comedy.

Many geeks in real life substitute knowledge for personality: the geeks have both. They're jerks, but they're fun jerks. They talk smack to the contestants, and they ridicule them when they lose. It's satisfying when the geeks fail, in a cathartic pro-wrestling-villain way.

The show used to air twice a day, but now it's only once, at 4 p.m. Central, 5 p.m. Eastern. This will never do. Especially since a full hour of the British "Whose Line Is It Anyway" is now in the show's former morning slot. I hope the reduction isn't a sign that the show is going away, because it's just too good.

The second season is currently airing, with a new host and some style improvements. The original host J. Keith van Straaten looked like a geek, but always stayed out of the geeks' way, except for once, when he asked the TV geek, "You and me are kind of like the Odd Couple, aren't we?" The TV Geek's response: "No."

The new host Blaine Capatch is an over-caffeinated wacko, who joins in the geek-talk. On the quality of the band Styx: "They should have called 'em Stux." Tiffany Bolton is the co-host, who does bits with the geeks, like when she, with a disgusted look, revealed that the TV Geek wears a bib, because his post-game snacking ruined his robe last season.

A game show hasn't been this fun since "Remote Control." The cast always seems like they're having a ball. During the final showdown, the geeks who aren't playing watch from an onstage couch and eat popcorn. During an episode with a pro-wrestling guest geek, the whole cast performed wrestling moves on each other during the closing credits. After losing one final showdown, the TV Geek ripped off his robe in righteous anger (revealing standard geek-wear: t-shirt and shorts), and stormed backstage, where he shoved past people and knocked over stuff.

The show often stumbles, however, in its selection of guest geeks, rotating fourth geeks who specialize in Star Wars, James Bond, comics, and lots of others. On each episode, the 3 main geeks introduce themselves with a funny byline, like when the Music Geek said, "I know more about 'N-Sync than any straight man should." The guests' bylines have improved this season, since one geek in the first year said the pitiful "I have seen all of the Sopranos episodes."

I'm particularly sensitive about this, because we try to be consciously different on RevolutionSF, in context and humor than the typical sci-fi site or magazine. We know our stuff, but we can have fun with it. The main Geeks are similar; they have showmanship.

Most of the guest geeks, however, are stiffs with only a bulk of knowledge to their credit. And sometimes not even that: The "Friends" geek couldn't think of the name of Ross' ex-wife. Neither could I, but jeez, Louise; I'm not the "Friends" Geek on a nationally televised show.

Watch out for the creepiest of all guest geeks: The Playboy geek. Maybe in my head it has something to do with his chosen forte, but even if he was the cross-stitch geek, he'd still look greasy and shifty. When asked whether he'd seen a particular actress nude, he responded, "Yeah..." with a long pause.

This season, a big prize is getting killed in a Troma horror film. Director Lloyd Kaufman was a guest question-asker. Jimmie Walker from "Good Times" was a guest asker, and asked the TV Geek about a show Walker admitted he didn't remember being in (the TV Geek did, though.)

You can play along at home, and feel superior when the humans miss easy questions. And surely, some of you will be able to answer some of the geek-level ones, too. Occasionally, I have known the answers to a few. But I got nothin' when it comes to cinematographers, and I can only name four from the cast of "Eight Is Enough."

If you consider yourself a geek, you should be watching this show. If you don't, then, man, I can't help you. This show is fun and funny. There really is no good reason for you not to watch.