Warm Glowing Warming Glow

Turkey? Yes. Cold? Not Sure.

So maybe it was a bad idea to title this episode of The O.C. "The Cold Turkey": Do the producers really want to put the idea of quitting into viewers and -- more importantly -- Fox executives' heads?  I'm just saying. 

Overall, a slight improvement over the previous week's day's episode: slightly better deployment of Taylor (although it's still pretty clear that no one knows who she is, exactly), some resolution to the Volchok story, plenty of Sandy, good forward movement in the moribund Julie-Dr. Roberts non-romance.  As always, the meta-stuff fell way flat.  I actually physically cringed at the Grey's Anatomy reference.

Not much to say, otherwise.  Um, the homeless stuff was both a little awful and kind of refreshing: no one seems to have learned or grown from sharing a meal with Those Less Fortunate.  I think the gag about soup kitchens turning away Thanksgiving volunteers was funnier when Gilmore Girls did it.  I liked the stuff with Kaitlin's dog a lot. 

I guess the main event was the final showdown (we hope) between Ryan and Volchok.  What to say about that except gayer than ever?  Volchok's whole explanation of the crash really read like he was hurt about losing Ryan, not Marissa.  I used to think that this was a show about an embattled upper class fighting off the encroachments of the working and criminal classes.  That stuff is all still there, but now it seems to me that if there's a single thread running through all four seasons, it's that there are dire consequences to repressing your sexuality.  -- Peter

Down Mexico Way . . . Again

Another somewhat flat episode of The O.C., albeit with some bright spots.  The writers are really just going through the motions, I think.  We've already done the thing where Seth inexplicably tags along with Ryan in order to stop him from doing something incredibly stupid more times than I can count.  (I'm not sure what to say about the Marines who got Seth drunk and gave him a tattoo with a "gay vibe."  How are we supposed to read that?)

There was a different problem with the Brown stuff: it was desperately unfunny.  There's that feedback loop where desperation just makes jokes less funny, which makes writers and performers more desperate, which makes them less funny . . .  It's a shame, because I think that most of the cast is really rising above the material and you get flashes where they're actually able to take the material with them.   Chris Pratt, for instance, had some nice non-verbal business. 

I'm beginning to be sorry that I was so enthusiastic about Autumn Reeser joining the cast.  She's still really great, but so far this season, no one seems to know what to do with her.  Especially unfortunate was the slutty roommate conversation.  Not only was it offensive and weird, but it ran false to the character: Taylor was coming off terribly prudish for someone who banged the dean of discipline (oh God!) at her old school and -- am I remembering this correctly? -- engaged in a three-way on prom night with her date and a Korean pop star.  The pay-off -- the off-hand exchange with Summer at the airport -- was good, but not worth the crappy set-up.

The clothing drive subplot was easily the best of the night.  Melinda Clarke is one of the performers who manage to elevate the material and Willa Holland seems to deflate all the wacky! rich! people! business happening around her by refusing to engage.  Half the time she appears to be half-asleep.  Tia Carrere's presence  was really jarring, though.   

Welcome to the Five Stages of Grief, Bitch

Dear Jenny,

So which way did you fall on the "Are we still watching The O.C.?" question?  Did you watch last night's premiere?  Season pass?  No season pass?  Are you still making up your mind?

I am tentatively back on board.  I sort of liked last night's episode, although I found it oddly flat: the funny parts weren't as funny as I think they were supposed to be; the parts that were supposed to move me, likewise, failed to.  On the other hand, it didn't actively irritate me.  Big surprise, I guess: Marissa (sniff!) was always the chief irritant.  Seth was usually not far behind, though, and he didn't bug me this week at all.

I think the show is headed in the right direction, too.  The transition from high school to college is always a problem with teen shows: how do you keep all these college-bound kids together?  I can't think of another one that has used trauma as a reason to keep the characters from moving on and moving out.  It's an interesting idea and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.  Also, Taylor and Kaitlin?  Love them, love the boots.

Love,

-- Pete      

Running Up That Hill

Does Josh Schwartz know what "Running Up That Hill" is about?

I just registered that the season premiere is tomorrow night. I'm not watching. I'm over it. No, I'm so watching. No, I'm not. Yes, I am.

Jesus of Newport Beach

I haven't posted anything since last week.  One (false) reason for this: I've been catching my breath for the fall schedule.  Another (true) reason: I've been crying uncontrollably over the season finale of Kyle XY. 

You may recall that I initially found Kyle XY uncontrollably creepy, sort of a television version of Powder.  It turns out that only the pilot and possibly the first few episodes played as pedophile porn.  Once the show found its rhythm, and once its title character was allowed to mature, it got really good. 

The sci-fi aspects of the show are neither very exciting nor very lame -- a little bit of The X-Files, a little bit of Escape from Witch Mountain, a  lot of The Pretender, a lot of Starman.  The way that these elements are incorporated with the straight-forward, teen drama elements were satisfying, though.

What really works are those teen drama elements.  The cast is very appealing.  I have a tiny crush on April Matson, who plays Kyle (Matt Dallas)'s foster sister, Lori, and I've always liked Chelan Simmons (Wonderfalls), who plays Lori's intermittently spiteful best friend, Hillary.   What's interesting, though, is the writing.  The main teen love story, between Kyle and nice, boring neighbor Amanda (Kirsten Prout) is not very interesting, probably because it's a relationship between two ciphers.  However, the secondary relationship, between Lori and poor little rich boy Declan (Chris Olivero, last seen as the doomed First Son on 24), is awfully good and feels awfully real.  In general, the way dating and sexuality get treated on the show is very sophisticated and very sensitive, neither exploitative on the one hand nor puritanical on the other.  Both Lori and Hillary are sexually active, for which there are consequences, but they're not draconian.  In the finale, for instance, Hillary, who has been sleeping with Amanda's boyfriend, Charlie (Cory Monteith), gets her comeuppance, but, startingly, gets to retain her dignity.  She even gets a great line: "Waterproof mascara kicks ass!"  For once it feels like accountability is evenly shared between the boy and the girl, a radical step forward for the genre.

Finally, Kyle XY is interesting because of the ways in which it casts light on the genres from which it borrows.  I mentioned earlier that in terms of story arc, Kyle XY and The O.C. are identical, with Kyle and Ryan Atwood filling the same role.  What Kyle XY makes explicit in the season finale is that Kyle is a Christ figure.  Is Ryan Jesus as well?  Hit your season 1 DVDs and let me know what you think.  -- Pete   

O.C. Casting News

I haven't figured out yet if I'm over The O.C. or not.  Last season started off strong, I thought, but ended pretty sucky.  Meanwhile, as you know, Fox seems to have lost confidence in the show, bumping it down to a relatively small episode order -- I forget the actual number, but it's somewhere in the teens.  On the other hand, both Autumn Reeser and Willa Holland will be around full-time.  In addition, Michael Ausiello just revealed that Chris Pratt will be appearing in at least six episodes.  Chris Pratt was great on Everwood.  I think I've talked about him before.  But judging from his character description, it looks like we're headed for another Seth-Summer love triangle.  I feel tired just thinking about that.  Can't you hear Seth whining already? 

Baby, I've Been Here Before

Hi Jenny --

I couldn't agree with you more about the O.C. finale.  It doesn't seem like anyone was satisfied with how the big, shocking death played out.  Here's a pretty good review:

http://fienprint.blogspot.com/2006/05/oc-my-god-they-killed-huge-spoilers.html

Heather Havrilesky has an unusually astute commentary here (read "worth the day pass"):

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2006/05/19/the_oc/index.html

Havrilesky makes an excellent point about the problem with the show, which is that the rich teenaged characters aren't as divertingly destructive as they should be.  It's the same problem Beverly Hills, 90210 had: it promised to tell the stories of rich and debauched Hollywood kids, but ultimately was about a small group of oddly moral teenagers who rarely so much as drank.  My guess is that the problem isn't so much the shows themselves or the writers, but rather the medium.  The central characters in network shows can't really exhibit the kind of bad behavior we want to see, week after week, without alienating sponsors.  Veronica Mars sidestepped that problem by making the central character an outsider who was revolted by her peers' sex and drugs.  (It was pretty smart of the writers to break Logan and Veronica up so early, too, because it allowed Logan to spend the entire second season seducing trophy wives.) 

-- Pete

He Who Smelt It

Dear Peter,

Well, all I can say is The OC sure dealt it. What galls me is that they seemed to know they were laying a steaming pile on America, because they kept working in all these overt messages that next year will be better (Kaitlin!) and I do believe it will. Here are the scenes I may never recover from:

1. Taylor's Bi-Bim-Bap shimmy.

2. Seth and Sandy's post-arson bonding moment. Um, I don't know about you, but if I'd burnt down my father's life's work, I'd have been shipped off to some Wyoming evangelical wilderness survival camp before the embers were out [note to the producers: excellent plot idea for Kaitlin]. I'd at least have been grounded, and I certainly wouldn't have been hugged. Who are these people?

3. Marissa's oddly unmoving death scene. The OC has made me cry before, sure, but this time I was barely interested enough to look up from my knitting. One, because, duh -- even if Mischa hadn't announced her departure, you knew, yes, exactly what was coming the minute Ryan's car showed up (PS: did Ryan's mom buy that off Laguna Beach's Kristin?) And two, did they let a goth teen storyboard that one? The tableau of Ryan carrying Marissa like some fallen teen messiah as a fiery armageddon raged in the background and oh no, it can't be, yes, yes, they're playing the song. Actually, that was so wrong it was sort of right.

I'm going to go watch it on Tivo six more times now, and hate myself for it.

Your BFF,

Jenny

Miss You! Mean It!

Dear Jenny,

Are you sad about our dear, dear friend Marissa?  I don't know how I feel.  It's possible I'm going through that stage of grief where you're kind of bored. 

The question I'm trying to resolve is whether or not Mischa really did any damage to last night's episode, as a work of art, by appearing on Access: Hollywood to tell us about her ouster.  I'm thinking no.  Even without that leak and all the others -- hello, Fox promotions department -- it would have been hard not to know what was going to happen.  It was like everyone was talking in air quotes -- even more so than usual.  I mean, is anything more ominous than the idea of "sailing around the world" with Jimmy Cooper?  Plus Ryan's Land Cruiser -- on television, old car is generally foreshadowing for a crash. 

I guess my real problem, though, is that the Marissa Dies! storyline stole from what should have been truly moving: Ryan's graduation from high school.  Ryan is the first member of the Joad Atwood family to graduate high school.  That's huge and it should have been played accordingly.  The moments with him and his now-slightly-less-humiliating mother were sweet but what we really needed were scenes with Ryan and Sandy, the man who more or less single-handedly dragged him and his fisticuffs to graduation. 

What say you?

Love,

-- Pete

PS The jokes about Taylor's three-way didn't work, either, but "Now that I've traded B's for A's, I was thinking you could help me trade my A's for B's" got a snort. 

Up in Smoke

Hi Jenny --

I'm so pleased that you've joined me in appropriating obvy.  That's already replaced razor as my go-to made-up slang expression. 

That was the only thing I really enjoyed about last week's O.C., though.  The rest of the Marissa subplot seemed fairly pointless.  Yes, obvy, it was nice to see Kaitlin again.   Otherwise, though, I don't care.  I'm guessing that next season, Kaitlin is going to be installed at Harbor, so we're not going to see these kids again, so why did we bother with their stupid crest or whatever?  It was kind of funny to hear Londoner Mischa Barton butcher the accent of her native country.      

Back in Newport, Ryan and Pretty stole that Maybach.  That was "art," because it explored the complex theme of ripping off reprising the pilot.  Summer accidentally exposed all of Seth's lies, and then felt bad about it, because apparently she's completely forgiven him for lying to her about Brown?  I don't get that, but then I was not paying very close attention to this whole subplot because I was watching with my mother and I was embarrassed to the point of distraction, expecting her to say something along the lines of "I hope you're more careful when you smoke drugs."  Ditto the one in which Kirsten cheated on Sandy with vodka.  (To Mom's credit, the only remark she made during the entire episode was "Oh brother," somewhere around when the Newport Group went up in smoke.) 
Love,

-- Pete