Tuesday, December 26, 2006
The OC
It is good. Seriously. I mean it is not quite season 1 level, but in the past few episodes, it has evolved into a flawed but enjoyable dramedy, say Dawson's Creek before the college years. (sure Dawson's could be painfully lame at times, but it was also totally great).
The evolution is thanks almost entirely to the character of Taylor Townsend. She is awesome, and totally the anti-Marissa. She is genuinly strange and awkward and possibly even kind of annoying. She pretended to be a sleep therapist in order to get Ryan to like her. She totally invaded Summer's privacy to figure out Summer might be pregnant in a kind of OCD way that reminds me of.....well, me. She saw Summer's unopened box of tampons and because she know that Summer had her period when she had visited Summer at Brown a month earlier, and it was now a month and a half later, and Summer had bought the box two weeks earlier but not yet opened it, she figured out that Summer was late. And she tells Summer about this in the greatest way ever, opening with I have a secret... The best part is, that unlike Marissa, she does not (nor are we the audience expected to) take her problems all that seriously. And while everyone inexplicably fell in love with Marissa, people regularly get annoyed with Taylor.
You don't get to see many women characters who are both really wierd but also lovable. And I don't need flawed women, Marissa with her alcoholism and self-destruction was supposed to be flawed, but I mean genuine geeks. There are far more men that take this role. Kirk of Gilmore Girls, Screech on Saved by the Bell, John Cage on Ally McBeal, Hiro on Heroes, and Seth Season 1 on the OC. The only woman I can think of is Elliot on Scrubs. Elliot is different in that she is playing off equally wierd characters, but Taylor is the designated strange one.
I also absolutely love the Ryan/Taylor relationship. It was the relationship I was always hoping they would have for Ryan on the show. For someone who thinks about TV as much as I do, I actually spend less time trying to come up with future plotlines than you think. But I always hoped they would give Ryan someone who was not just so damn serious, a girl he did not have to save. Also, I wanted him to have some old school romantic comedy. Partly because his character is meant ot be not funny, Ryan in a romantic comedy would be funny. And the show got it right. When Taylor remarks that Ryan is funny, both Seth and Sandy were like well if she thinks he is funny, she must like him. My only complaint is that they moved the relationship a little fast. I mean I don't want the OC to totally change and have a full blown will they or won't they, that would be changing the show too much, but would extending this to like 5 episodes killed them? It is just that I am worried. Once the relationship is settled it might have to have drama. And the show might start to suck again.
The evolution is thanks almost entirely to the character of Taylor Townsend. She is awesome, and totally the anti-Marissa. She is genuinly strange and awkward and possibly even kind of annoying. She pretended to be a sleep therapist in order to get Ryan to like her. She totally invaded Summer's privacy to figure out Summer might be pregnant in a kind of OCD way that reminds me of.....well, me. She saw Summer's unopened box of tampons and because she know that Summer had her period when she had visited Summer at Brown a month earlier, and it was now a month and a half later, and Summer had bought the box two weeks earlier but not yet opened it, she figured out that Summer was late. And she tells Summer about this in the greatest way ever, opening with I have a secret... The best part is, that unlike Marissa, she does not (nor are we the audience expected to) take her problems all that seriously. And while everyone inexplicably fell in love with Marissa, people regularly get annoyed with Taylor.
You don't get to see many women characters who are both really wierd but also lovable. And I don't need flawed women, Marissa with her alcoholism and self-destruction was supposed to be flawed, but I mean genuine geeks. There are far more men that take this role. Kirk of Gilmore Girls, Screech on Saved by the Bell, John Cage on Ally McBeal, Hiro on Heroes, and Seth Season 1 on the OC. The only woman I can think of is Elliot on Scrubs. Elliot is different in that she is playing off equally wierd characters, but Taylor is the designated strange one.
I also absolutely love the Ryan/Taylor relationship. It was the relationship I was always hoping they would have for Ryan on the show. For someone who thinks about TV as much as I do, I actually spend less time trying to come up with future plotlines than you think. But I always hoped they would give Ryan someone who was not just so damn serious, a girl he did not have to save. Also, I wanted him to have some old school romantic comedy. Partly because his character is meant ot be not funny, Ryan in a romantic comedy would be funny. And the show got it right. When Taylor remarks that Ryan is funny, both Seth and Sandy were like well if she thinks he is funny, she must like him. My only complaint is that they moved the relationship a little fast. I mean I don't want the OC to totally change and have a full blown will they or won't they, that would be changing the show too much, but would extending this to like 5 episodes killed them? It is just that I am worried. Once the relationship is settled it might have to have drama. And the show might start to suck again.
# posted by Julia @ 8:51 PM 
