On TV, drama isn't my genre of choice...but it is an essential part of my balanced diet. The hourlong TV drama is a very crowded genre with few variations in the formula. Once something hits, the networks scramble over eachother to make the quickest, cheapest clone of that show while the network that aired said hit scrambles over themselves to create the quickest, cheapest spinoff. That's how you end up with like 9 Law & Orders and CSI:Bangor, Maine featuring Jimmy Smits (or some equally dumb shit.) Yeah, I keep hearing this stuff is the greatest and, while I'm sure it is, the fact remains that I hate cop and lawyers shows almost as much as I hate cops and lawyers themselves. Hospital shows? Well, I'm not really all that sympathetic a person. I was all excited about Desperate Housewives...until I found out it was a TV show and not a dating service.
Just as my personality dictates, I tend to gravitate toward the odder genre shows. Those tried and true formula dramas are just that. Fucked up interpersonal relationships are a solid basis for any good TV drama (just like in real life) but I'll be damned if a watch another one unfold in a police precinct. If you want me to watch, set it aboard a spaceship like Firefly. Make one (or more) of the characters dead a la Dead Like Me...or undead, like on Buffy or Angel. Give them special powers like Wonderfalls or Joan of Arcadia. Have the show's lead character be an unconscionable monster like The Sopranos. Show it in real time, like 24. What I'm saying is, it needs a hook. Something extra for me to chew on. That je nais c'est quios that so few shows have nowadays. Now, if you've done your homework, you'll have noticed that out of all the shows mentioned in this paragraph, most of them have been cancelled already and one or more will be ending soon. So where does that leave me? I'm too smart to watch most of the garbage out there but not smart enough to come up with my own shows. This is a bothersome place to be. Enter The OC...
Last week, I took a chance and bought the first season of The OC. Let me just say that I was not disappointed. Within the first three episodes, I fell in love with all the main characters. Within five or six more episodes, I fell in love with all the secondary characters (or loathed them, if that's what the writers wanted.) The show is based on a very simple "fish out of water" premise, much like Beverly Hills 90210. If you've never seen it before, The OC centers around Ryan Atwood, a troubled teen with a lot of potential but no direction. He is, much like 90210's Brandon and Brenda Walsh, the obvious outsider and our "in" to this foreign world of money, sex, and power. Through certain circumstances, he is transplanted from Chino, CA (the "wrong side of the tracks" so to speak) to lush Newport Beach in Orange County. As the series progresses the veils are pulled back on the community members and we find out that for all their wealth, they are not unlike the rest of us. They have secrets, desires, and problems just like everyone else...and that's where the real meat of the story lies. Now, without writing a dissertation on the show, I will simply give you my five top reasons for tuning in (as taken from an email where I was asked to defend my position on The OC.)
1. Exec. Produced by Doug Liman (director of Swingers, Go, et al)
2. Razor sharp writing. The OC's writing team has done eps of Buffy, Alias, Firefly, Sex and the City, The Gilmore Girls, and several other highly successful/critically acclaimed shows.
3. Some of the directors have come from such excellent shows as 24, Dead Like Me, Buffy, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, and Oz.
4. Music on the show includes: Spoon, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens,The Walkmen, A.C. Newman, Gomez, Pinback, Death Cab, Mascott, Elliott Smith, The Eels...(believe me, I could go on)
5. Peter Gallagher. Oh, and his eyebrows.
All this coupled with a incredible eye for continuity (where viewers are truly rewarded for keeping up with the show's events;) a wonderful self aware/self effacing humor (the characters are often found watching a show called "The Valley" with a very similar plotline to The OC itself;) an intelligence that rivals that of its Balboa County based comedy counterpart, Arrested Development; and adult characters that are every bit as rich and entertaining as their teenage counterparts.
The bottom line is, after floundering for half a season (post Angel) I think I've found my new nighttime soap opera...and even though the premise is a bit formulaic, the end result is anything but. And who knows...maybe by staying home to watch this show on Thursday nights, I'll avoid all that real world drama I desperately need to steer clear of.
2 comments:
Kelly watches Desperate Housewives. Sometimes I DVR it for her if she thinks she might miss it. She maintains that she was watching it before it was cool.
Me? I was cool way before it was cool to be cool.
I was desperate way before those housewives were...
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