The (s)Wheat Spot!

Yoga-lates

I feel pretty sheepish to have my first real post here be about television, which many consider to be a lesser form of entertainment than books, films or even music. I'm not about pride, so I'm going to let it slide. None of us are as cool as we like to think we are. Now that I got the apologies out of the way, I'm just going to say it:

I love the OC.

It may be the the best show for the ever-important 14-28 demographic to come out in the last decade. (I can say this because Seinfeld came out in 1989, narrowly escaping the cutoff point.)

Each of the characters experiences some dysfunction or another that they run around having a good time trying heal. In roughly 1.25 seasons, this show has tackled such bleeding edge issues as: Homosexuality (both this season, with Alex, the bisexual club manager, and season one with Luke's gay father), Abandonment (Ryan's mother), dysfuntional parent-child relationships (Marissa and Julie Cooper, and Kiersten "Kiki" Cohen and Caleb, her father), as well as flawed-but-functional parent-child relationships (Seth, Ryan & the Cohen parents).

Beyond this, there is the over-arching theme of forgiveness and grace that the Cohens show to Ryan in accepting them into their home during the first quarter of season 1 (which, by the way, I am addicted to, thanks to my girlfriend and my roommate). The Cohen family dynamic is a great example of a loving family, in a very post-modern context. Sandy and Kiersten face some sort of challenge to the fidelity of their relationship on an average of about once every four episodes, without compromising their faithfulness to one another. They are honest with one another and are gracious and trusting with one another in the face of these challenges. Plus Sandy gets to surf and be a high-powered attorney - the ultimate one-two power punch character dichotomy.

Don't even get me started on Seth Cohen. He's the ultimate post-modern narrator - leading us from scene to scene with a disoriented, sarcastic, cynical outlook as he tries to navigate a world that makes no sense to him, i.e. family, friends, Newport Beach girls [especially Summer], etc.)

Although I am dissatisfied with the more formulaic writing in season 2 (welcome to the bait shop, where [insert name of flavor-of-the-month-band (and Sandy Cohen - puke)] bring you the soundtrack to this week's exciting episode of the OC... brought to you by Columbia Records, Inc.), I feel like the OC has been brave enough to tread important emotional ground without selling out to total sentimentality, a la One Tree Hill and Seventh Heaven, but not teetering over into the total smut of a Melrose Place sex-fest.

I get the feeling that there will be important life-issue dialogue springing from discussions of each week's OC episode as the weeks press on. Here's to that, and here's to Deathcab!

posted by paul @ 2:24 PM