You fellow Barrelhousers will no doubt be shocked at this development, but I haven't watched The OC in roughly six weeks. At first it was just because I had other, more important things to do on Thursdays. But then I realized that I wasn't too keen on going back into the fold, as the show had started its long train ride to Suck Town. The last straw (and the last episode I saw) was when Marissa went to public school and was suddenly surrounded by the cast of West Side Story.
So now I kind of feel like an addict making his first tentative steps toward sobriety. Look at all the people out and about on Thursday evenings! The lights are all so bright! Why are there bugs crawling all over my skin?!
Luckily, I have my methadone in the form of Veronica Mars, my new guilty pleasure TV addiction. On the one hand, I realize being addicted to Veronica Mars is one step up on the coolness ladder from being a devotee of Everwood. But on the other hand, the show's really entertaining. Veronica solves mysteries, so it's kinda like Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys (or Scooby Doo, minus the super-cool van). There are enough bitchy rich people to fill in for the Newport noopsies. And she has lots of cool surveillance gadgets.
So, is there any reason I should start watching The OC again? In a way, I feel like I've abandoned an old friend in his time of need. But the truth is that friend was starting to get kind of needy and melodramatic, always bursting into tears over the phone and burdening me with all his stupid problems. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to leave people alone to fix their own problems.
12.06.2005
Like Nancy Drew for (almost) adults
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5 comments:
though i commend your good taste in choosing veronica over the has-beens in orange county, i must take umbrage at your characterization of the (ahem) "coolness" factor of vm, which is widely acknowledged as the only viable and appropriate successor to buffy the vampire slayer, a show so cool that the kookiest university in england devoted an entire *academic* conference to it. seriously. here it is: http://www.slayage.tv/EBS/buffy_studies/conferences/btf.htm. i have metaphorically dragged friends to the television to watch it, and many of them seem to agree with the assessment that it is the best show on tv right now (with lost a close second, of course). see http://babiesarefireproof.blogspot.com/2005/11/i-had-dream.html#comments for proof.
oh, to lurk on a blog and then post vehement comments the first time out--so shameful. very sorry, truly.
Not shameful at all ... and in fact I now feel much better about watching that show. I think my apprehension was just, well, here I am a grown man (though admittedly with the mind of an adolescent) watching a show on UPN about a mystery-solving high school girl. Which, on the surface, sounds kinda lame. But the writing is really good, and since there's always some short- and long-term mysteries going on, it's entertaining in a way that soap-opera-style melodrama is not.
I agree wholeheartedly. Veronica is the only worthy heir (heiress?) to the buffy throne. Its not Buffy yet, but it is great, and has a lot of the Whedonesque traits -- quick, funny, affecting, blond high school girl who is really cute but somehow not very popular in the title role.
If only there was a role for a spiky haired blond vampire on Veronica, we'd hardly be missing a thing.
I also bailed on the OC this year, and I'm not sure why. I did love Kirsten's stay at Hot Middle Aged White Lady rehab. And that ragtag bunch of "public school kids" was right out of the Bizarro Seinfeld episode. But I think they stopped, to borrow a phrase from (barrelhouse issue two interviewee) Ian MacKaye "fucking with the form." As soon as they stopped wink-winking about the fact that it was a high school drama set in orange county, and started lazily falling into the things a normal high school drama set in orange county might do (mom has a 3-episode drinking problem! public school!), it started to lose it for me.
Actually, there was a show called "Popular" that followed that exact same arc. The first two episodes were really funny -- cartoony overblown versions of a high school drama that really tweaked the format. Then they got lazy or desperate for ratings, and downturned into a kind of unimaginative My So Called Life.
I used to love hanging out with the women at Hot Middle Aged White Lady Rehab.
So much better than Frumpy Old Eskimo Lady Rehab. Take my word for it.
televisionwithoutpity.com was tooting VM's horn for a while and i decided to catch an episode. i was treated to steve guttenberg as a minor character, kevin smith guest starring as a convenient store clerk (witty, isnt it), and veronica losing her virginity without making it a huge deal or something she had to torture herself over, mentally.
i agree, mike, it's pretty damn good. it's not going to overtake my obscene and nearly unexplainable love for 'degrassi the next generation' but it's a worthy guilty pleasure.
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