Yes, despite the fact that I'm posting about anime and sci-fi back to back, I don't consider myself a classic geek in that sense. I would classify many of my friends as those sorts of geeks, so this claim is not some sort of expression of pride or superiority. However, I think that being a geek in general just means putting an excessive amount of energy into any one given pursuit or interest, and in that respect, I am certainly a geek in more than a few areas.
I can easily geek out over great television shows. Evangelion and Battlestar Galactica (quite possibly the geekiest television title this century from a sci-fi perspective) are two such shows. Though both shows focus greatly on robots (an abbreviated description for the sake of simplicity), they both also employ more nuanced moral themes.
There are shows with more realistic settings that also employ themes of morality. A recent show that people have gone crazy about that meets this description is The Wire. The obvious difference between The Wire on one hand and BSG and Eva on the other is setting. In a fantasy setting, BSG and Eva are free from reality-based restrictions and can manufacture situations that could never occur on our Earth in 2008. This is obviously a trade-off; I've frequently extolled the realism of The Wire. But I think this trade-off is acceptable. Every show takes place in its own universe and operates according to its own rules.
Any series which takes the effort to set up its own rules and adhere to them has the proper structure to deal with the more universal themes that all good dramas bring into play. BSG is marked by an extreme attention to detail and a wildly diverse range of characters. It's what caused me to geek out over it initially and it continues tonight at 10pm.
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