But in college, the characters either seem way too self-serious for their age (the cartoonish "angry feminists" on campus at Hearst) or they seem immature and pathetic (the cartoonish hateful frat boys). Even though we'd never begrudge college kids their fun (up to the point where they hire exotic dancers), we don't really want to think about them -- either because we hated them in college, or because we were them.
Even so, I don't think "Veronica Mars" jumped the shark this season, exactly. I still find myself caring whether Veronica ends up with Logan or Piz. The show still seems to have a few good twists up its sleeve -- and we might've remained more invested in it, if CW hadn't pulled it for two months so it could search for the next whoring sea donkey. But I did find myself wishing I could take Veronica away from all this, "Charlie's Angels"-style. She's bigger than college, after all, and deserves to loom large over something more romantic and high-stakes than keggers and sorority houses and the case of the missing football-team playbook.
And last week, there was new hope: Creator Rob Thomas was said to have pitched two different fourth seasons to CW, one of them a continuation of Veronica in college and another that leaps ahead a few years, to Veronica training at the FBI Academy. Yes! Who wouldn't watch a perky, G-rated "Silence of the Lambs" with a bubble-gum-pop soundtrack? Now there's the kind of talented, charismatic adult child that won't make you shake your head and wonder where it all went wrong.
Not only that, but "OC" creator Josh Schwartz has, along with an NBC pilot called "Chuck," a CW pilot called "Gossip Girl" that's about rich teenagers in New York. Aww! I love it already! Can I hold it?
So stay tuned, because on Thursday, we'll find out Veronica's fate. Please, CW, save my baby from the hard streets. Give my little honey pumpkin another chance to prove she's truly special!
California McDreamin'
Ah, novelty. The downfall of countless marriages, debt-strapped consumers, and alligator-infested sewers. What else can explain the latest two-hour nightmare episode of "Grey's Anatomy," in which those crafty writers tried to trick us into enjoying their upcoming spinoff, "Private Practice" (terrible, terrible title), in which Addison (Kate Walsh) moves to California ("California! Here we cooome!") and finds her own McDreamy, played by Tim Daly, whom you might remember from such good times as "The Nine's" hostage drama and last week's queasily tragic twist on "The Sopranos."
The Seattle-Grace part of the episode was just fine: Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) have been shuffled to the side, finally, so we can worry about whether Izzie (Katherine Heigl) and George (T.R. Knight) should be together, and ponder whether Cristina (Sandra Oh) is going to leave Burke (Isaiah Washington) at the altar, thereby assisting the show's producers in dumping Washington for his nasty words about Knight this season. Overall, "Grey's Anatomy is a bouncy, lovable, well-written soap that knows just how to whip up the drama. Whether or not Izzie and Meredith continue to roll their eyes and bite their lips and cutely second-guess themselves every few minutes, the show probably has a few more solid seasons in it.
What's alarming is that the producers have plucked Kate Walsh off the show and dropped her into her own little "Wellness Center" in California, assuming that she can hold down an entire show of her own, as long as she rolls her eyes and bites her lips and cutely second-guesses herself a lot.
Meanwhile, the nice thing about Walsh is that she didn't do the eye-rolling, lip-biting thing at all. Addison was always sort of matter-of-fact and steely-eyed and no-nonsense, yet vulnerable enough to be likable. How unimaginative is it to take a good character and assume that she has to start acting like Ally McBeal in order to carry her own show?
So instead of seeing Walsh take on this new setting in an organic way, mumbling and growling the way she does on "Grey's," we've got her making googly eyes and rambling on nervously and worrying about her fertility.
Plus, the Wellness Center is filled with high-minded liberals and humorless mouth-breathers and new age types whom we're all meant to make fun of. The faux-pilot featured a "Who's the Daddy?" story, in which a surrogate mother has sex with her boyfriend, the husband of the egg donor, and two gay men -- I can't even remember what they were doing there. It wasn't believable, so it's easy to forget the details.
Next page: No one wants another Skeletor McBeal
