The O.C.: And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

Sigh... It's all over. Spoilers for "The O.C." finale coming up...

That was just 60 straight minutes of "awwww," wasn't it? Really lovely, and I don't say that just because Sandy's daughter and mine share a middle name.

Happy endings for everyone! Ryan and Kirsten move back to Berkeley, where of course Sandy becomes the professor that all the kids love. Seth and Summer find a way for her to save the world and yet remain a couple. Julie pulls the Kelly Taylor Memorial "I Choose Me" Maneuver on her wedding day and turns it to her advantage by turning Frank and Gordon into Team Julie. (I can just picture her spending the rest of her life stringing both guys along, acting like she's going to pick just one of them very soon, and both of them recognizing what she's doing and not caring, because she's awesome enough for two men.) Ryan and Taylor stay together (I think), Ryan becomes the guy designing the building instead of the guy working construction, and maybe finds a way to pay forward what Sandy did for him oh so many years ago. Pancakes reproduces! (Loved Summer telling Ryan not to use the cage for cage fights.) And, presumably, the Magical Homos (second cousin to the Magical Negro) got a ton of money for selling a beautiful Bay Area Craftsman house.

I've run out of nice things to say about this season, and Josh and I spent a lot of time already rehashing the past in our interview, so I'll just focus on some smaller details:

• Does the fact that he named her Sophie mean that The Nana has passed on, or that that's yet another Jewish tradition Sandy doesn't bother with?
• If there's John from GEORGE and Paul from GEORGE, then where's Ringo? Or, since Josh is a known "Seinfeld" fan, is the whole thing a "The Summer of George" reference?
  
• What does Seth do with himself while Summer's off playing eco-heroine? Is he back to making comic books? Did he join the noblest profession of all and become a critic?
  
• If "The Valley" got a five-year renewal, I have to assume that it doesn't air opposite "Briefcase or No Briefcase" -- or "Sexy Doctor Drama" or "Police Scientists: Las Vegas." And if real-life Jake broke up with real-life April, does this mean they're destined to get married on the show?
  
• Loved the dozen Bullits, all geographically-named. Had he and Julie stayed together, would the poor kid have been named Newport?
• Is it just me, or does it look like they have Adam Brody playing both the Seth and Ryan parts in his new movie?
• In an hour filled with awesome, touching moments, my favorite may have been Julie telling Summer that "the world deserves to know you." And while I never liked Marissa, I'm glad she was included in both the present and the flashbacks; wouldn't have been right, otherwise.
• I thought Ben McKenzie looked way old back in the pilot, but compared to now he was practically a fetus.
• Ryan in a yarmulke is always genius, and makes me once again lament the decision to skip over showing his bar mitzvah in its entirety.

What did everybody else think?

The O.C.: Josh says goodbye

Today's column is an interview with Josh Schwartz about the end of "The O.C.," the beginning, and lots of things in between:

"The O.C." creator Josh Schwartz was in the middle of a storyline last season involving Johnny, an angst-ridden new character, when he got a note from his bosses at Fox.

"It was fairly indicative of the POV there (at the time): 'This is Fox, not Fox Searchlight,' " he says, referring to the boutique independent film division. "Thus, Johnny was hit by a car."

(Later, Johnny fell off a cliff and died.)

The Johnny memo was just one of many clashes Schwartz had with the network that year. He and the producers had already outlined the season's first six or seven episodes when they got an order to go back to the beginning and insert a femme fatale character, who was played by Jeri Ryan.

"It was tonally wrong, and we probably should have been focused on things like not making the Johnny storyline (stink)," he says.

To read the full column -- including Josh listing his favorite musical moments from the series -- click here. If you have a whole lot of time on your hands, the full transcript (or close to it) follows after the jump.

So, what can you tell me about the finale?

Nothing -- especially since the Fox promos did such a good job of giving almost everything away in the final act. (He sighs.) It definitely brings real closure to the series, it's almost like last week was the finale, and this week was almost a pilot for the future, as long as one's being pretentious

Will "The Valley" be canceled?

You'll have to watch and see, won't you? The fate of "The Valley" will be decided.

Now that you're done, how do you feel about these 16 episodes?

I'm immensely pleased with these 16. We went into this season with a real point of view about the kind of show we wanted to do, and I feel like we did that.

Is there anything you would have done differently if you knew going on that this would definitely be the final season?

What do you mean, "if"?

When we talked before the season, you were at least pretending to be hopeful.

We knew. You always want to have hope. You don't want to go into a season going, "It's over." But I think we knew.

So knowing that, what did you specifically want to accomplish with the last year?

It was really about, I felt at times last year, in the need for trying to deliver ratings, the storylines got a little overcooked, we lost some of the humor and some of the heart of the show, and it was forsaken for the spectacle of a promotable moment. Our show has always had to walk this line between melodrama, an operatic level of melodrama, and also this character-based romantic comedy. You ask a bunch of different people what they watched the show for and who they watch the show for, and you get a bunch of different answers. It was a fine line that the show had to walk, and I think this year, we decided if we were going to fall off the balance beam, we were going to fall more on the romantic comedy side, and that was the decision we made. You weren't having cliffhanger endings every week.

And no one literally fell off a cliff.

In our best episodes, even in this season, we were able to do both, and in every season. Our decision was, well, if we're not going to have the crazy story points, we're going to have to make it really funny.

Getting back to something we talked a little about at the beginning of the season, Taylor's really the only character you added after the beginning who stuck.

Well, there's also Kaitlin.

Technically, she was there at the beginning. You just recast her.

Touche.

So why did Taylor fit when, say, Alex or Zach or the others didn't?

First and foremost, it's Autumn Reeser. She's just tremendously talented and delightful to work with, and she wanted to be on the show and work really hard, and that came through. But also, when the show started, I'd never really done it before, I'd never watched "90210" or "Dynasty" or "Dallas," so the whole idea of introducing new characters, that was something I had to learn as I went. We never introduced any of those characters in season two with the intention of keeping them around. As much as I loved having Olivia Wilde on the show -- and we were forced to wrap up that storyline quicker than we wanted to because of what was going with the FCC -- even her, we never planned on keeping any of these characters long-term. When we introduced Taylor, we wanted to plant some characters to stick around for more than a season.

So you never planned for Lindsay or anyone else to be around long-term?

We never planned for it that way, and one of the things I've learned over the run of the show is that an expansive ensemble takes some of the weight off your principal characters, an ensemble that feels like it's part of the show. When you don't have your crisis of the week and it's just the relationships that sustains your show, it's good to have a wide gallery of characters and we created some characters that weren't intended for more than we used them.

In retrospect, is there anyone you wish you had kept?

I always loved having Luke on the show, and he may have quickly gone soft. We rehabilitated him very quickly, it wasn't long before he was strumming a guitar being a goofball, though I loved that part of him. I think there was room for him to stick around. Who knows about the great Luke/Anna love story? Now you can only find out about that in fanfics.

Why did Haylie keep vanishing?

Fox kept giving Amanda Righetti series regular jobs, she kept appearing in other Fox shows, and we weren't ready to commit to making her a series regular to keep her to ourselves.

Let's go back to the genesis for a minute. I know you've said that the pitch was "'The Karate Kid' without the karate'...

Or "'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' minus the wacky graffiti," take your pick. The genesis of it was, I had gone in for a general meeting at McG's company when Stephanie Savage was still working for his company, now she's a full-time producer on the show. We started talking and she mentioned Orange County as sort of a world, and she said they were open to any take. One of the suggestions was, "What about extreme sports cops, '21 Jump Street'-style?" I said, "Let me come back to you with characters." I didn't know extreme sports or cops, but I had gone to USC, been around these Newport kids, being a Jewish kid from Rhode Island, and being around all those Orange County kids, I felt extremely Jewish and extremely 5'9" and not buoyant in water. But I also knew it was really a seductive place and would have loved to have dated one of those girls.

I am very much a product of my pop culture influences, and so is Stephanie, so we were going to have one toe in the 80s teen movies of my youth and also a nod to all the "Rebel Without A Cause" and Douglas Sirk '50s melodramas as well. Aside from pop culture references, we wanted it grounded in a real family that was the only normal haven in this world. The wish-fulfillment of the show wasn't being given the keys to the kingdom, but was being adopted by this family that anyone would want to be a part of.

The Seth in the pilot wasn't really recognizable from who he became. How much of that transformation was getting to know Brody? And talk a little about how the show went from Ryan's story to Ryan and Seth's story.

It's Ryan's story again in the finale. Even if it didn't always seem that way, Ryan's story was the framework for the show. But one of the pleasures of working in a television show is getting to know your actors. Seth was always going to be a prominent part of the show, but there was a lot of fear in the beginning about having too comic a character in that role. We kept hearing from the network after we cast Ben, "Now that you've got Luke Perry, who's your Jason Priestley?" And we kept going, "That's not the model!" When Brody walked in the room to audition, he was also good-looking enough that people felt comfortable he could be a leading man, but if you go back and look at all the launch posters, he wasn't on them. They put Luke on instead of him.

I thought Seth's line last week about how turning their story into a body-switching comedy might get another couple of years out of it was the most self-aware line he's ever had.

He's got a couple more coming up�

Was there a struggle early on with you and the network over how funny the show should be?

Initially, it was okay. There were a few times -- the episode where we went to LA and followed Grady Bridges around, we had some rants taken out, and probably rightfully so. It was a balancing act, and I think maybe last year we went away from it. I think in time, the Gail Berman regime came to embrace the comdic elements of the show, but it certainly wasn't what anyone focused on initially. At the end of the day, we had to serve the melodrama part.

So it was Peter Liguori who was pushing you away from the comedy last year?

I'm not going to say anything bad about the guy.

Hey, you're off the air in a few days. What's he going to do?

Yeah, what's he going to do? Put us in a terrible timeslot and not promote us? No, seriously, he's a good guy, and he let us do the season this year that we really wanted to do, and do all 16 episodes, so I appreciated that a lot.

You know the Jeri Ryan story, right?

I've heard bits and pieces second-hand, but what's your version?

The third season got off to a weird and wacky start. After we'd already broken the first six or seven episodes -- which I'm not saying, by any means, were genius -- we were told we had to go bck and insert a new femme fatale in the show, from the first episode, and that the model was, if she was available, Nicolette Sheridan. And it was like, "Oh boy, where do we go from here?" Third seasons are tricky and I think maybe it became a little bit trickier, and we got a little bit thrown off balance.

It didn't seem like the kind of story you guys did.

It was tonally wrong, and we probably should have been focused on things like not making the Johnny storyline suck. All of a sudden you're scrambling, and I was not as focused as I probably should have been.

How could you have made the Johnny storyline not suck?

What it was intended to do initially was one thing, I don't remember anymore, but I've learned that if you're in a storyline that's not going well, end it fast.

(Later, Schwartz e-mails me to add, A note we got last year which was fairly indicative of the POV there was: "This is FOX, not FOX Searchlight." Thus, Johnny was hit by a car.)

I was surprised that, after you finally rid yourself of Johnny, you kept Volchok around, even into this season.

The show always needed the sort of harder-edged storytelling spine to it, that was a little more laced with melodrama, you need antagonistic energy. I think it worked the most successfully with Trey, and Volchok brought a little bit of that dangerous bad boy energy into the show. Ryan needs somebody to punch.

In season two, you had Sandy and Kirsten flirting with Kim Delaney and Billy Campbell, in season three there was Jeri Ryan and the hospital storyline; how hard was it to write interesting material for what's supposed to be an extremely happy, functional married couple?

It was a challenge. We were really lucky that we had great actors with great chemistry. The initial impulse was, let's keep them happy, but happy people in a happy marriage is a tricky thing to write in a nighttime serialized drama for Fox, so you start trying to trouble the marriage in ways that hopefully makes it stronger in the end. This season they've been strengthened and really fun and those perfect parents again. You want to service the actors in storylines, but the principal audience was a young adult audience, and I don't know how much they cared about the state of their marriage.

Well, getting back to what you said before about different parts of the audience watching for different reasons, what sense do you have of the effect Marissa's death had on that young adult audience?

It's so hard to tell. Quite honestly, the show was struggling last year in the ratings. I've been very upfront about the fact that I wasn't as focused on the show as I was in the past or the fickleness of the teenage audience. But I feel like any story that gets written about the show, it gets frustrating. You can't write it without talking about the scheduling. At its height, without the benefit of "Idol," had 7 and a half to 8 milion viewers -- even only 10 million with "Idol." It was never this huge across the board smash hit, and with every timeslot move, we lost 20 percent of our audience. There are big shows that start with 20 million viewers and get moved and lose 20 percent of their audience, and they can afford that. When you start with 7 and a half million viewers and you move, you're in trouble.

It's impossible to extrapolate what creatively cost us with viewers. Outside of the scheduling, it's so hard. I'm sure some people stopped watching because (Marissa) wasn't on the show. It was a risk of us making a move like that in an attempt to reinvigorate the show, but you can't say that that's the whole enchilada.

To rehash, your reasons for killing Marissa?

It felt like you can get locked into a little bit of a formula, dynamics that start to get predictable. To a lot of the audience, the Ryan and Marissa romance felt like it had played itself out, short of a happy ending, and that we had done everything with Marissa that was conceivable, including redemption, which is where she was at the end. She never struck me as the sort of character who would sail happily into the sunset, going back to her first appearance passed out drunk at the door to her house. It felt like the most fitting end for her.

If you had to pick an episode to show someone what "The O.C." is about, what would it be? "The Escape"?

That's a perfect example, because it did all the things that the show did, when it was firing on all cylinders. It was fun, it was dramatic, also real at times, sometimes silly. I also look at other episodes: the Valentine's Day episode from season one, the season one finale, "The Rainy Day Women."

Getting back to some other absent faces, did Tate Donovan want to leave, or did you run out of things to do with Jimmy?

Again, we're trying to tell enough kid stories and make sure we service Sandy and Kirsten, and at a certain point, something's gotta give. We felt like we couldn't service Jimmy.

And Caleb's death?

Similar type of thing. This was a character who we didn't think would be a part of the show and he became a major part of the show for two seasons. We felt his death would have major repercussions. It sent Kirsten into decline, made Julie single and poor.

Whatever happened to the Kaitlin spin-off where she was in boarding school?

I was about 17 episodes into the first season, and I was asked to go up into Rupert Murdoch's boardroom. Rupert wasn't there but all the head honchos at Fox were there, and I was asked, with a fair amount of pressure, to do another show. I was shown a schedule where, if I did this, "The O.C." would remain on Wednesdays at 9 and the new show would be on Tuesdays at 9 after "Idol." Who wouldn't want to do that? It wasn't wise of me to do that, I had plenty to learn about the TV business, but I said, "Okay, I don't want it to be a spin-off." I was worried about cannibalizing the show too soon, and spin-offs usually fail. Everyone signed off on that fact, I went off and worked on a pilot called "Athens." It was a big honor, it was going to keep "The O.C" behind "American Idol." Then I turned in the script and everyone said, "So how do we turn it into a spin-off?" It became a protracted battle not to make it a spin-off. Then I arrived at the upfronts to announce the new show and they said "The O.C." was moving to Thursdays, that was a perfect storm of its own. When it felt that was the only version of the pilot that was going to move forward was one I didn't believe in, I said, maybe as a compromise, we'd have discussions about a Kaitlin boarding school drama, and then Gail Berman went to Paramount, and those discussions ended.

After the show became so successful breaking bands, you introduced the Bait Shop in season two, and then it went away. What happened?

We used it for two years. I don't know, at the end of the day, if it was as interesting to the people at home to watch bands play as it was for me, but it was a good destination, and we got a lot of mileage out of it. I'm sort of restless, we do a storyline and I'm, "Okay, let's move on." That wasn't the only thing we dropped after a while.

Well, my thesis on the show -- and feel free to shoot holes in it -- has always been that your restlessness was what made the first season so great, and what made you struggle later on. You did the Seth/Anna/Summer triangle in, like, three episodes, where another show would have dragged it out for a year and a half, and that was great, but it meant that you had used a whole lot of material by the time season two began.

All the things that made the show a blast also meant that it was going to burn really really bright and really really fast. That's appropriate. I think four years for a young adult drama is a good amount of time. I don't believe shows should run forever and ever and ever. I have two pilots now, and if we're talking in four years, I'll be a very happy man.

The rate of speed of pop culture today makes it so it's not a necessity for shows to run forever. Some of my favorite shows about young people -- "My So-Called Life," "Freaks and Geeks," "Undeclared" -- didn't even run for a full season.

So we burned through a lot of stories, that was a lot of fun, but going into the second season, our attitude was, six episodes into the first season, we already had a drinking game, the rules of the show had been codified. And I thought, "Let's go into season two and change it up, let's not have Ryan hit anybody, split up our couples and surprise people by moving the show in a new direction." We tried so many new things at once, and we may have overthought it. I'm proud of that choice, but it was a lesson to be learned in that crash course in television.

Do you feel like you've learned enough that you'll be in better shape if either or both of your pilots go?

Famous last words, right? I'm sure there are new mistakes for me to make that I have even yet to know exist. It's been an amazing sort of on the job training, and to be able to do that while working on a show that was able to have the impact it had on the audience while it was on was amazing. We were shooting the finale, in Pasadena, on location, and there were all these kids gathered at the bottom of the street, crying, begging the cast for pictures, and I thought, how remarkable that there's still this passionate audience on the next to last day of filming.

What are you going to be doing on Thursday night?

Watching the show. It'll be a last celebration, I'm really proud of the episode. It'll be really satisfying. When it goes off the air, I'll make myself not read about the show anymore, and look back on it for the amazing experience that it was.

The O.C.: Blood brothers

Penultimate "The O.C." spoilers coming right up...

Well, how about that? The last few episodes had me worried that Josh and company were just limping to the finish line, and even the first third or so of last night's episode had me thinking, "They're spending their next-to-last episode ever on this?" But somewhere around the point where Julie and Kaitlin had their Bob Seger duet and Seth started Ryan on a trip down Punchy Memory Lane, I just went with it, and by the time everyone was hugging in the hospital, I was getting choked up.

One of my few major complaints about this season has been how subdued Seth has been throughout. Adam Brody arguably went too far in the opposite, mugging direction in the middle seasons, but if there was one part of last week's "Summer worries that Seth doesn't care about anything" subplot that rang true, it's that Seth seems to be on Lithium or something equally personality-muffling this year. So it was very welcome and funny and touching to have him go so meta throughout his rescue attempt, to have him bring up so much of the good (Ryan punching Luke a whole lot), the bad (Johnny and company) and the abruptly-forgotten (Lindsey and Sadie), and the whole body-switching line was the icing on the cake.

Some series devote a week to a clip show right before the end, and in a way, this one felt like a clip show, not just with all of Seth and Ryan's nostalgia, but Taylor referencing Jimmy Cooper, the nod to the instability of the Balboa Wetlands (subject of an early Caleb Nichol plot), Julie's Seger love and other bits of mintuiae for the die-hards.

And, at the same time, it played like something that would have been perfectly appropriate as a series finale. After four years of having his bacon saved by Ryan, Seth finally gets to return the favor. Julie and Kaitlin finally reach an equilibrium and genuinely enjoy each other's company. Taylor makes peace with her mother (after the most awesome roll-and-shoot in the history of roll-and-shoots). The Cohens will have a daughter to join their two fully-grown sons. And the McMansion -- Ryan's salvation from his dead-end childhood, the site of so many good and bad and funny moments for him and the Cohens -- collapses. (And, in the process, gave Peter Gallagher yet another moment to shine, as you could see so many things flashing across his face as he surveyed the wreckage, not the least of which was the realization of how lucky they were to have been out at the time of the quake.) When the preview for the finale boasted, "All your questions will be answered!," I turned to my wife and said, "I'm not sure I have any questions left, really."

Which doesn't mean I won't be glued to the couch next Thursday night at 9, blowing off "Grey's" and the NBC comedies and maybe even sitting through some commercials if I have to, to say goodbye to this wonderful roller coaster ride of a show.

What did everybody else think?

What's Alan watching on a long delay?

Weekend catch-up post, with comments on, in order, "Grey's Anatomy," "The O.C.," "30 Rock," "The Knights of Prosperity" and "House" coming up just as soon as I get dressed for my pylon-lifting class at the gym...

Back when ABC did a "Grey's Anatomy" press conference shortly before the Super Bowl bomb two-parter, we weren't allowed to see the episode in advance (part of Shonda's quest to stamp out all spoilers), so all we had to go on was a vague trailer that looked an awful lot like an ad for one of those Very Special "ER" sweeps episodes where a tank crashes into the emergency room while the Symbionese Liberation Army holds Peter Benton hostage and forces Carter to perform elective surgery on their leader. Somebody asked Shonda whether she was comfortable with her show entering territory so close to "ER," and she flashed her usual Cheshire grin and said that, while the stakes were higher, it would still clearly be an episode of "Grey's," with the focus on the emotional journey of her characters more than on pyrotechnics.

She was true to her word then, and she's been largely true to her word on the sweeps disaster episodes since, but this week's episode felt exactly like something "ER" would do, with one exception: "ER" would have done it better. Whatever morbid problems that show has suffered in its decline phase, they still produce the hell out of all those plane crashes and train crashes and kielbasa stand crashes, to the point where even if I hate every single character remaining on the show, I still get excited when stuff starts blowing up real good. "Walk on Water" felt like it was trying to quicken my blood in that way, but it never got there. Even Alex's rescue of the crush injury woman (and bravo to the makeup department for their work on her) came and went too quickly.

Now, if the emotinal journey stuff had been more interesting, I could have let the lack of goosebumps slide, but I didn't really care what was happening to any of the regulars this week, with the possible exception of poor Chief Weber. That scene in the elevator where Addison dressed down the male attendings was priceless, and the only part of the hour that actually felt like "Grey's Anatomy."

The third-to-last episode of "The O.C." had me wondering: if the Internet is for porn, then how much of it is for clown porn? After the furries gag a few episodes ago, what's next? A rusty trombone joke? (Oh, wait: that's "The Loop" territory.) This was another fairly aimless episode, with the Seth/Summer plot feeling particularly strange. Summer complains that Seth doesn't feel passionate about anything, when Seth's defining quality is that he feels too passionate about things: comics, sailing, Summer, Asian cinema, video games, comics, emo music, comics, etc. Those may not be worthy enough subjects for the worldly new incarnation of Summer, but the guy does care about things.

"30 Rock" has been on a real high of late, so I suppose it was inevitable they'd put out an a'ight-blah episode right about now. There was some hilarious Jack stuff, notably the sequence of him getting progressively drunk (loved the way it was edited so he would always be holding his new drink in the final shot of the old scene) and he and his ex getting hot and bothered while arguing about their Arby's franchise in Telluride, but the rest of the episode fell flat. Tracy was too sane, Pete's story didn't have an ending, Liz seemed trapped in her own subplot, and outside of Jenna's brilliant Vagina Day monologue, I didn't like her storyline with Frank. Even Kenneth didn't make me laugh (outside of the "16 Candles" shout-out with his underpants, and what's with two shows on at the same time doing "16 Candles" refs?), and he's usually the show's secret weapon.

I've had some requests for "Knights of Prosperity" commentary, and I really wish I could say kinder things about the show, as I'm usually a fan of the comedy stylings of Burnett, Beckerman and Logue. But each episode inevitably fades into background music for me after five minutes or so, and I only feel really compelled to look at the screen whenever Rockefeller is talking. (Kevin Michael Richardson is proof that voice actors don't get enough respect in this business.) The cover version of "Cats in the Cradle" was a nice touch, but it's also typical of the way "Knights" uses pop culture references as its dominant source of punchlines. I don't feel like the characters are clearly established enough for me to laugh at them for their own sake, as opposed to when they're name-checking some heinous '80s movie.

"House" gets back to basics, and I couldn't be more pleased. Loved that he was so insistent on winning the bet with Cuddy that he rolled his chair down a flight of stairs. Foreman's always been my favorite of the three sidekicks (he's House's favorite, too), so I'm glad anytime he's the lead on a case. Raise your hands, anyone who doesn't believe House and his pretty new wheelchair-bound rival will get involved, however briefly and disastrously.

What did everybody else think about any of these?

The O.C.: Insert "SexyBack" joke here...

Very brief spoilers for "The O.C." coming right up...

Definitely feeling the melancholy at the prospect of three episodes left, even if, plotwise, the show continues limping towards the finish line. The Julie/Frank and Kaitlin/Bullet pairings at the end were pretty sweet (though I wonder how long Gordon, cool as he is in his own weird way, will actually be willing to play father figure to his ex-girlfriend's daughter), but I still don't really buy Kevin Sorbo as Ryan's dad, and I feel like the state of Seth and Summer's relationship has been questioned far, far too many times in only 13 episodes this season.

Liked the Bait Shop in-joke where the reporter wonders how such a tiny venue always gets such big names, but I'm very disappointed in Josh -- or whoever the show's '80s Reference Continuity Supervisor is supposed to be -- for having Kirsten blame her perm on "Top Gun," which came out in the summer of '86, and then have her meet Sandy while he's campaigning for Mondale sometime in 1984.

That's all I've got, though Fienberg has an amusing take on how incestuous the show has been and continues to be now that Ryan's dad has hooked up with his dead girlfriend's mom.

What did everybody else think?

The O.C.: Where's Ned Ryerson when you need him?

Spoilers for "The O.C." just as soon as I figure out what holidays would have been left for Josh to write about in season five (Purim?)...

An attempt to make peace with cancellation. On the one hand, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that there are only four episodes left. In my head I understand the vagaries of ratings and the TV business, but the show is so creatively vibrant right now, which almost never happens in a final season. (Or, if it does, it's with a show like "Seinfeld" or "Cheers" where the stars don't want to keep going.)

On the other hand, I can see some wisdom in letting things wind down. Since the Marissa shiva ended, the season's been long on character and short on plot. There have been some significant events (Summer kicked out of Brown, the arrival of Ryan's father), but overall things happen largely as an excuse to give certain characters more to do, or to generate some phony conflict, like the pointless ups and downs of Ryan and Taylor's relationship.

Taylor's funny and Chatty Ryan is interesting, so a faux-arc can be entertaining on a short-term basis, but I don't know that there's another year's worth of stories to tell about these characters.

In a way, in fact, this episode felt like it could have been the finale. Kirsten's pregnant, Ryan and Taylor are back together, Che has found happiness with Groundhog Girl, and Julie has tentatively agreed to marry The Bullet. Obviously, there's more to come with her and Frank, and with Seth and Summer, but there's nothing that has me on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next. So in that way, it feels like the right time. Hell, they even brought in Showkiller Allison La Placa to play Taylor's therapist. Will Jason Gedrick be popping up in the finale?

Some other episode specifics: Peter Gallagher hasn't had a lot to do this year, but his reaction to the baby news was beautiful. I'm surprised Che didn't try to turn their night on the rooftop into something amorous; it was amusing to see him try to reconcile his heterosexuality with his belief in the validity of spirit visions. I was also expecting more wacky mistaken identity hijinks with both Summer and Taylor in the groundhog suits, and I can't decide whether I'm happy they didn't go there. And Chatty Ryan feels like a completely different character, but not in a bad way.

What did everybody think of this episode? And have you made your peace yet?

The O.C.: The owls are not what they seem

Spoilers for "The O.C." just as soon as I figure out which surgical intern helped Dr. Roberts with the unicorn...

I'm a few days late to the party and I have other writing to get done, so I'll be brief. A very light, funny episode that ended on sad notes for virtually every character. (Sandy seems happy, I suppose, but then, the only thing he got to do was his hilarious, out-of-left-field and very loud Jerry Lewis impression.)

Though the cancellation wasn't made official until last week, this one suggests Josh saw the writing on the wall. It's one thing to not try to write ratings bait anymore, which has been the prime motivator for this resurgence. It's another thing to fill up an episode with Jerry Lewis impressions and David Hume name-checking, neither of which is exactly catnip to the younger demo.

Much fun was had with the Taylor storyline -- "Ryan, even if I was that limber, you know I would never do it in the Chunnel" is an early candidate for Line of the Seas0n -- and it was nice to see Henri Lubatti not plotting to kill thousands of people (or performing "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo"), even if his smarmy Frenchman did bear a strong resemblance to Henri from "Cheers." I've had to force myself to stop saying "Je pense!" at random moments as well.

Liked the brief visit to Seattle Grace, complete with "Grey's"-y music, particularly Dr. Roberts summing up the themes of the unicorn case the way Meredith's stupid voiceover usually does. Summer's quick descent into Newpsie-hood was as unrealistic as the idea that "Je Pense" would come to Newport to tape an episode, but Rachel Bilson gives good drunken airhead, and Che continues to be used just right.

Don't care about the Muppet Babies stuff, and I feel like they've gone to the "Summer doesn't know who she is" at least a couple of times already this season alone, but overall, quite fun.

What did everybody else think?

The O.C.: You've got chutzpah. I hate chutzpah.

Spoilers for "The O.C." just as soon as I find my spare Torah scrolls...

Cancellation Salve Part 2: A very funny episode, particularly the Seth/Summer story. The bad way to go would have been for them to drag out their ambivalence for weeks, not having them tell anybody how they feel, and get increasingly pissy with each other. Instead, Ryan (not caught up in any major girlfriend drama right now) and Taylor (not a self-involved drama queen) trade notes, quickly rat Seth and Summer out to each other, and the story turns into a much sillier form of dysfunction. Favorite moment: Summer giving the Torah a violent shake after walking out of Taylor's room. (Close second: the Summer/Julie scene.)

The Frank/Ryan reunion plot was fine for the most part, though I'm still at a bit of a loss about how Frank has become so trusted by the Bullet in the six months he's been out of prison. Sorbo's also a little too smooth, particularly in the dinner scene. I get that he's turned his life around in the last eight years, but this felt like they pushed it further than they needed to so the faked illness would seem like a bigger sin. Also, Julie and Frank? No, please.

Willa Holland had to carry the Kaitlyn story, because the Very Special Guest Star (my ignorance of whom definitely puts me on the outer edges of the show's demo) brought absolutely nothing to the table. But it's a measure of my growing affection for the character (and/or Willa) that it still worked. With the end around the corner, all the Muppet Babies stories feel a little pointless, but I suppose we have to have one character still attending school somewhere.

Previews for next week look very promising. What'd everybody else think?

End of The O.C.: Try the veal?

Press release excerpts from Fox:

The sun will set for the last time on THE O.C. when the series ends its four-season run Thursday, Feb. 22 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. The countdown has begun, with all-original episodes airing from Thursday, Jan. 4 through the last episode on Feb. 22.

"THE O.C. Season Four finale will also be the series finale. This feels like the best time to bring the show to its close,� said Josh Schwartz, creator and executive producer of THE O.C. �Thanks to the hard work of our cast, crew and writers, we have enjoyed our best season yet, and what better time to go out than creatively on top. It has been an amazing experience and a great run. For a certain audience, at a certain time, THE O.C. has meant something. For that we are grateful."

Not a shock, and if I'm doing the math right, all 16 episodes will have aired by Feb. 22. Josh was always a "Seinfeld" fan, so I suppose there's some (very) small satisfaction in knowing he's going out on a high note.

UPDATE: Just heard from Josh, who wanted to add this:

Part of my quote from the press release that didn't make the cut was "There has been some speculation about a Season 5 on another network but this feels like the best time to bring the story to an end". I felt better to go out now with the run we're having then try and move the show, etc etc. and maybe not be able to deliver the same level of quality. Teen dramas have a shelf life. We've had a lot of parties on the show, and so I've learned, best not to stay too late.

The ending will be fun and bring real closure to the series.

The O.C.: If you're here for sex, there's, like, five guys ahead of you

Spoilers for "The O.C." coming up just as soon as I figure out whether Hercules could beat Seven of Nine in a fight...

I'll be frank: I've been so sleep-deprived the last few days that I was drifting in and out of consciousness for a lot of last night's episode. So feel free to disregard every opinion I'm about to express. If this wasn't the last original episode of a show I watch to air for the next two weeks, I might have taken a pass on commenting altogether.

I said a few weeks ago that, while Josh and company had gotten the kid stories back on track, they seemed to have run out of ideas for the grown-ups. Guess they only needed a little more time, because I was much more interested in the Julie/Sandy/Bullet/Hercules stuff than I was in Ryan and Seth's latest disastrous road trip. (Have these guys ever traveled anywhere without incident?) I liked Bullet playing surrogate Jimmy for Kaitlin, I liked Julie's continued panic at having joined the companionship industry, and I'm intrigued by the previews and Sandy literally fighting for position as Ryan's "real" father.

That said, on a 1 to 10 scale of cheesiness, where would you put the introduction of Ryan's suave, international traveler dad? I've got to go at least to 7, but I'll defer final judgment until the next episode airs. Now that Josh has returned the focus to the comedy, the challenge is finding dramatic stories that have some resonance without going to the laughable Marissa/Johnny/Volchok place. Ryan confronting his dad has the potential to work, but Sorbo's character seems to have wandered in from a daytime soap. We'll see.

Taylor continues to be awesome, but, again, I wasn't in love with the desert rave plot, which I feel like I've seen on, like, five different WB shows. Summer's instant buyer's remorse on getting engaged to Little Man Cohen could be good for both yuks and pathos, though.

What did everybody else think?

Merry Chrismukkah to all

Been out of the office most of today, including a stop by HBO to interview Ricky Gervais about season two of "Extras" (and, after being lukewarm on season one, I loved season two), so I'll get to the column link quick: a look at the improvement of "The O.C." and how hard it is for long-running dramas to reverse a creative slide.

As the column says, I wasn't wild about tonight's Chrismukkah episode. I feel like the "It's a Wonderful Life" riff has been done better too many other places, and it wasn't nearly as funny as the last several episodes have been. Since I'll be otherwise occupied this evening, feel free to use this post to comment on the episode after it airs.

The O.C.: Tawny Kitaen time

Better late than never, spoilers for "The O.C." coming right up...

Still more comedy goodness from this resurgent season, centering once again on the unbridled wackiness (and kinkyness) of Ms. Taylor Townsend. Bribing gay men with Asian cinema collectibles, doing her best '80s music video babe impression, trying to get the Harbor kids to play board games... I'm trying to think of the last scene she was in that wasn't funny. Hell, she's even managed to make Ryan funny -- or, at least, to reveal that Ben McKenzie has a gift for deadpan.

Seth and Summer's pact to go back to Rhode Island in the fall felt oddly poignant, since we all know the chances of season five are all but non-existent, but I liked Seth's aborted attempt to play Ryan Atwood, Summer's utter disdain for Che, Summer taking responsibility for her own actions, of course, Summer introducing Pancakes to Seth.

At the moment, I feel like every "O.C." episode review just turns into a list of things I liked, so to those I'll add Kaitlin briefly seeming like a real teenager, Kirsten and Sandy auditioning to be Replacement Seth, Julie's reaction at discovering she had inadvertently made herself eligible to attend that one bitchy girl's Pimps 'N Ho's party, the confusion over ownership of Dr. Roberts' house and its various rooms, and the revelation of where "Che" comes from.

Am I wrong? Is there something to complain about right now that I'm missing?

The O.C.: Pajama time

Spoilers for "The O.C." just as soon as I pet my bunny...

Well, last night was The Taylor Townsend Show, and is that such a bad thing? They're not even being subtle about putting her together with Ryan, they've contrived a reason for her to share scenes with Julie and Kaitlin, and Sandy and Julie act like she's been one of their sons' friends since kindergarten. But this isn't a Cousin Oliver situation because Taylor is just too funny, and any excuse to put her in scenes with any other character is fine by me. In particular, Ryan was funny last night because of her, particularly his amazement at Taylor's amazing psychic powers.

Liked Julie and Kaitlin fighting over the same guy (particularly Julie shamelessly dancing around in her tennis skirt), liked that Che totally sold out Summer and didn't realize what a dick move it was because of his love of The Movement, and I even liked The Bullet.

I'm not saying that I don't want the show to ever be serious again, but the one area where it's almost never faltered has been the comedy, and I'm glad Josh figured that out (and/or decided to ignore the network notes asking for more angst). As mentioned yesterday, I've essentially given up on "Grey's Anatomy," so as long as "O.C." and "Scrubs"/"30 Rock" remain in existence, they get the Thursday at 9 priority.

What did everybody else think?

The O.C.: It is time to stop all your sobbing

Spoilers for "The O.C." just as soon as I put the new season of "The Valley" in my Netflix queue...

And the funny is back! Sure, it was back in small doses in episodes one through three, but you can only get so many yuks when your characters are tearing themselves apart to mourn the death of The Most Perfect Girl Ever. And with the shiva arc essentially over (Josh says she'll be a major topic come Chrismukkah), we get an hour of full-on, unbridled wackiness. I am happy.

Plenty o' highlights, from Summer and her rage issues going through the five stages of grief in record times (with a few replays of Anger, natch) to Naked Che to Taylor asking Ryan about his cage-fighting career.

I especially liked the Seth/Summer/Che non-triangle. And Josh has said, for the record, that Che "is not a romantic foil" for the other two, which is smart, because they've played that card so many times already that it's become yet another meta topic. (Hence Ryan's "No one believes that" when Seth worries that Summer's going to dump him.) There are interesting things the writers can do with these two without the constant break-ups and make-ups, and I like seeing them disconnected (by distance, by her new friends, and by Marissa's death) without automatic doom and gloom on the horizon. Plus, Chris Pratt is damn funny. I look forward to him getting a good role come pilot season.

The inevitable pairing of Ryan and Taylor could seem a little lazy -- "Let's put him together with our only available, age-appropriate female regular!" -- but I'm in favor of it for two reasons. First, Taylor is, in fact, awesome, and any storyline that's going to give her more face time is more than welcome. Second, I like stories that allow Ben McKenzie to crack a smile, and it would be a nice change of pace, if nothing else, for Ryan to be involved with a woman who isn't in constant need of rescuing -- or, at least, whose rescues can be of the silly variety.

Sandy's bro-mance with Jason Spitz (played by the ubiquitous Jose Zuniga, and if anyone can go read his blog post on the subject and come up with the suitable formula, you'd make him a relatively non-unhappy man) felt a little filler-y (it also, as Fienberg points out in yet another Zuniga-related blog post, not as good as the recent "HIMYM" bro-mance subplot). I'd much rather see this than Sandy and Kirsten deal with infidelity, substance abuse, and all the other sturm und drang of seasons two and three, but coming up with interesting storylines for either or both of them has become increasingly difficult, and I think we're a sweeps period away from them moving to the Far East to hang with Jim and Cindy Walsh.

Still, these first four episodes have gotten so much else right that I can abide a few adrift characters. It's a damn shame five people are watching, but between the bad memories of last season and Fox's complete apathy towards promoting the show, what did we expect? Now the only hope is that they get to stay on the air for all sixteen episodes. Four down, twelve to go.

What did everybody else think? And, seriously, go help Fienberg out on that first link. He put a lot of work into it.

Feasts and famines

Spoilers for "The O.C." and "Survivor" coming right up...

On "The O.C.," I quote Fox's own ratings release from last night:

Although still modest, THE OC outperformed last Thursday's performance by +12% among Adults 18-34 (1.9/5 vs. 1.7/4) and +9% in Total Viewers (3.7 vs. 3.4 Mil)

Woo-hoo! Well, not really. But improvement's improvement, and those extra three hundred thousand or so viewers saw a very good episode, one that for the most part laid to rest all the Marissa angst in satisfying, surprisingly understated fashion. Ryan gets his face to face with Volchok and realizes there's no point in using his Kid Chino fists of fury on the guy (in a scene reminiscent of Tommy Gavin with his brother's killer on "Rescue Me"), Summer confesses that she misses her friend, and in the end, Julie comes to Ryan and says, simply, "Tell me about her." Again, it's so much easier to feel bad about Marissa when Mischa Barton isn't around to remind you of what an irritating character she was.

(Here's a question: I watched the first four episodes in a rush, and when I got to the start of next week's show, I made this note: "Have they referred to Marissa by name at any point this season?" Her name definitely pops up next week, but I'm curious whether they actually avoided using her name during these mourning episodes, and Josh couldn't remember for sure. Has anyone heard it come up in these first three?)

The comedy blended better with the tragedy than I felt it did in Wednesday's episode, especially the presence of the increasingly hilarious Taylor at the Cohen family Thanksgiving and Seth introducing the homeless guys to the wonders of "Battlestar Galactica." (So we know Seth watches it, Dwight Schrute is obsessed with Starbuck and Veronica Mars has started using "frak" as a curse word; how many other network characters can we get to start referencing it?) Decent "Grey's Anatomy" in-joke with Dr. Roberts, too.

I keep trying to watch "Survivor" on CBS' Innertube, and it keeps vexing me. Last week, I couldn't get it to play on any of the four browsers on my Mac, and this morning at the office, the episode completely skipped over the act featuring the mutiny and the reward challenge. Shame, too, as it sounds like that was the most memorable moment of the entire season. Poor, stupid Jonathan. I suppose an argument could be made that he was next on the chopping block at Aitu and has now moved over to a tribe with more potential room to maneuver (either by going with a White Power strategy or banding together the minorities to get rid of Adam and his harem), but that would require the kind of skills he hasn't displayed since he was chopping up Bill Paxton in "The Last Supper."

The O.C.: Really, who doesn't need Chiclets?

Spoilers for "The O.C." coming right up...

First off, I need to get this off my chest: Hollywood needs to institute at least a 5-year moratorium, if not longer, on stealing the "Silence of the Lambs" fake-out about who's knocking on whose door. I think my three-year-old daughter could have figured out the Seth/Ryan switcheroo before it happened, and I spent a good chunk of the scene with Seth and Volchok groaning at it instead of paying attention to what was probably one of Adam Brody's better performances in a while.

The Mexico jaunt is the weakest of the season's first four episodes, the one where the tones mix most awkwardly -- and, not surprisingly, what works best is the funny stuff, whether it's Taylor's horrified reaction to Summer's crunchy new look ("When was the last time you shaved your legs? It's like a forest! You've got hobbit feet!") or the entire scene with Luke's brothers shaving their chests ("Gay dad always trumps slutty mom"). On the other hand, the insertion of Steve-O to add some levity to the Mexico scenes didn't work, aside from inspiring a lengthy philosophical debate between myself and Josh Schwartz over which would be more likely to keep Seth from being buried in Jewish cemetary: the shiksa mom or the tattoo?

I did like Seth betraying Ryan to save him, but rewatching this one made me glad I was immediately able to go to the next one (and to the one after that). In that way, it's a good thing episodes two and three are airing on back-to-back nights. Now if only Fox had bothered to promote this at all...

What did everybody else think?

The O.C.: Who are you to say chickens can't fly?

Spoilers for "The O.C." (posted a little early because I'll be out for the rest of the evening) just as soon as I remember what wise man once said "Cage matches work. Of course they work. If they didn't work, everyone would still be inside the cage."...

Damn. That was... not bad. No, better than that. That was good. Confident, in character, funny on occasion (any scene with Che), genuinely touching at others (the comic book store intervention), really the most like itself the show has felt in a long time, maybe even going back to season one. There's too much bad karma built up over the last two years, not to mention too much plot that Josh burnt through in the first one, for the series to ever really recapture the magic of the good ol' days, but this was a quality level I didn't think the show could hit anymore. I actually watched it twice, and it's grown on me even in the week since the second time.

Ryan's cage-fighting sounded cheesey in theory, but it worked in execution, playing into his constant need for self-flagellation and difficulty in thinking without his fists. I've grown tired of dramas that do in media res openings, but that entire opening sequence -- from Ryan cleaning his wounds in that dingy supply closet to the WTF? meeting with Julie at the Mermaid Inn (where the two of them used to sleep with Luke and Theresa, respectively) -- really drew me in and hit harder when we revisted it two-thirds of the way through. (The reveal of where Kaitlin got the Pretty Woman boots was particularly nice.)

Back when Josh capped Marissa in the finale, I wrote:

Ryan has always been and will always be an angsty character. It's his reason for being on this show. But there's a difference between the "Sorry, nice rich Jewish man, for accidentally burning down your father-in-law's model home and getting into fights at every cotillion" kind of angst and the "My explosive temper triggered a series of events that led to the tragic death of the only girl I've ever loved" angst, and I don't see how either Ryan or the show pulls out of this. Julie can still be funny and bitchy after her wrinkly sugar daddy husband dies, but her daughter? Does Summer get over her best friend dying anytime soon? Is Taylor quite as amusing taking Marissa's place in the inner circle? Bah. No good can come from this.

Mea culpa. The show isn't skirting the consequences of Marissa's death, but in spite of the mood lighting and the cage fights and Julie's pills, it doesn't feel overwrought, but just right. It also helps that I've seen the first four episodes and have witnessed some of the light near the end of the tunnel, but I felt okay with it even at the end of the first hour.

Marissa is proving a more useful character in death than she ever was in life. (Funny how much better she gets when Mischa Barton doesn't have to play her.) Everybody's responding differently: Ryan through his masochistic fights (and, after the intervention, by unbottling his anger to win his last fight and go hunting for Volchok), Summer by latching onto Che and keeping Newport at a physical and emotional distance, Seth by going into a corner and doing his best not to bother either his best friend or his girlfriend, Kaitlin by tempering her conniving with about 5% more compassion for her mom, etc.

Yes, parts of it are melodramatic, but that's what this show is -- just, on its better days, it's a smart melodrama. Ben McKenzie, Rachel Bilson and Melinda Clarke all gave among their best performances, and there was just enough of the funny ("Let me buy you a new toothbrush," Luke's dorky kid brothers) to reassure us that Josh knows where the show needs to go once he gets through this shiva period.

It's probably going to get slaughtered by "Grey's," "CSI" and possibly even "Supernatural," but at least I don't feel like I'm just watching the show out of nostalgia for the book-worthy days.

What did everybody else think?

When you ain't got nothin'...

...you got nothin' to lose. At least, that seems to be Josh Schwartz's attitude at the start of this much-improved season of "The O.C." An excerpt from today's column:

"You hear that news" about "Grey's Anatomy" and the smaller episode order, "and you suddenly become zen, or as zen as a neurotic Jew like myself can get. I actually feel like some of the decisions we made last year were made about ratings. The network was getting darker and edgier, and we were trying not to get canceled. We've always tried to walk a line between being part of a genre and tweaking it, and I think last year the genre side won out. A lot of that was because it felt like it was stuff we had to do. There was a lot of carnage."

Faced with a no-win timeslot and a network that, as he puts it, is "clearly moving in a diffrent direction," Schwartz and his writers decided to get back to "just doing the show."

NJ.com finally got the story up. To read the rest, click here.

Two colleges and a digestive block

Lots and lots to get to, and while few of them are thematically related, I don't have time for many, many posts. Actually, the best thing I watched all night was a review screener of "The Office" episode airing May 4, which is the funniest damn thing I've seen in a long time, but I can't write more about that now. In order: "The O.C.," "Survivor," "South Park" and "Alias."

"The O.C." is really frustrating me lately, because parts of it are just good enough that I want to keep watching, while others are at the same baffling, cringe-inducing level that's typified most of seasons two and three. If the show would just be bad all the time, I could walk away, but it keeps teasing me with these reminders of what it used to be like.

The good: The return of Anna, even if she was there as Seth's fairy godmother/plot device, and even if I'm puzzled by how Samaire Armstrong now looks like she's using Drea de Matteo's stylist and sounds like a cross between Drew Barrymore and Kellie Pickler, neither of which were true as recently as her time on "Entourage." Wha happen? Also good: Ryan happy. I feared we were going to get back on that cosmic treadmill where, just as he's breaking out the smile, someone slips a flaming sack of karmic crap next to the pool house door. On the other hand, given Theresa's history with honesty and this baby, shouldn't he ask to see a copy of the paternity test?

The bad: I hate, hate, hate plots that only can continue if the characters involved won't sit down and talk honestly for, oh, three minutes. All Seth friggin' had to do was blurt out the phrase "I didn't get in!" during that walking tour, and we could move on. This is all just dumb and protracted.

The unknown: because it was late and because I just don't care anymore about certain characters and subplots that have been on this show for far too long, I fast-forwarded through every Marissa scene that didn't feature Ryan or Summer, and every Sandy and Kirsten scene whenever it became obvious that it was about the hospital storyline, so I have no idea what happened with any of it. Did Ryan's freshman buddy turn out to be a jackass?

You watch "Survivor" long enough, and you can pretty much tell by the pacing when there's not going to be a Tribal Council for some reason. With the way the episode was moving, plus Bruce's intestinal distress, plus that long-ago teased footage of someone being med-evac'ed out of the game, I think we all knew where this was going. I'm assuming he's going to be well enough to return to the jury at some point, if not in the very next episode, then before the end (and they can show him the raw footage of Tribal Council at the hospital in the meantime to keep him as informed as the rest). Otherwise, what's the option? Bring Nick back? Have an even-numbered jury pool and risk a tie vote for the million bucks?

Not an especially satisfying ending, but one of the most entertaining iterations of the chopping challenge to date. Because Terry was the only obvious target, once he went out, it got ugly in a hurry. Loved seeing Courtney and Shane wig out over the answers, loved that Cirie knew everyone would have picked her as the least likely to survive on her own (and Aras picking Terry? WTF? He may be a sucky strategerist, but in terms of survival ability, I'll pick Top Gun over the leaf-phobic, the nicotine junkie, the hippie who wants to hold a sacred burial ceremony for every dead creature and plant on the island, the Boston chick who hasn't done squat from day one, the 57-year-old man with the rock garden, and even the yoga dude who loves to sleep in the teepee in his daddy's backyard).

Loved pretty much all of it, even though I'm not sure how much it changed anything. Shane's a tool, but I do believe he was playing Aras and Cirie -- as we all know by now, he's a sometimes actor, and that interview he gave about what he did was one of the few times since the season began where he didn't seem like this character he'd invented to go fame-whoring with Johnny Fairplay for the next five years. Bruce was the only one who would have had his feelings hurt by being targeted quickly, and that's moot. So the only real fallout is Courtney's flakiness -- and if Shane thinks she's his best final two partner, he'll have to screw over his two strongest allies to bring her there. He's not that dumb, even if he believes they could be the first alliance to survive the post-merge game intact. (Um, Tagi? Porno Brian's group? Team Tom?)

Now, where does this week's "South Park" rank among the show's freakiest? Above or below Lemmiwinks? In case you didn't see it -- and, if not, you'd better hurry, as this may join "Trapped in the Closet" on the Never To Be Re-Aired list very soon -- what started as a parody of the James Frey/Oprah controversy turned into a surreal hostage drama involving two of... um... Oprah's orifices, each of which spoke with a different British dialect. ("Gary," and you know what that is if you saw it, sounded a bit like Terry Jones playing the mom in "Life of Brian.") I really don't know what else to say about it, except that I think Trey and Matt may have been smoking Towelie for the entire writing period.

And, finally, "Alias." I had basically given up on it a couple of years ago, stopping back in every now and then to see if it made any more sense or if the producers had just introduced another Everything You Thought You Knew Was Wrong evil conspiracy to distract the audience from the fact that they had no idea where the plot was going. (I'm thinking that, at the end of this season of "Lost," Kate is going to wake up in an alley behind the hatch with a scar on her belly and a few missing years in her life.) But I figured I'd stick around for this five-week curtain call and... I just think I've outgrown it. Lena Olin and Victor Garber are awesome, but my mind kept wandering and wandering and wandering. What's the name of the new evil group? The Fifth Pope? The Seventh Seal? Shark Sandwich? Whatever it is, anytime anyone mentioned their name, I zoned out. Out of nostalgia for what I used to like about the show, I'm going to stick around till the end, but if the remaining time commitment were more than a month, I don't think even Jennifer Garner in another rubber dress would keep me around.

When Captain America failed... again

(In this entry, "Survivor" and "The O.C.")

Terry, Terry, Terry. I want to like you, I want to root for you, I want to do a Photoshop collage of you and Tom Westman, but you're making it awfully hard. First there was your stubborn insistence on hanging onto the pole last week. (He really needed Chris Rock standing on the beach yelling, "Get off the pole! Get! Off! The! Pole!") There was never going to be a better time to use the Immunity Idol, and you wasted it.

And then, last night, so, so, so many mistakes. First, he made virtually the same dumbass sales pitch to Danielle and Bruce that he made to Shane and Cirie the week before, offering Bruce the lovely gift of finishing in fifth place instead of sixth, and offering Danielle the Idol plus... I dunno. The thing he doesn't get is that Casaya, despite its challenge success and its unified voting these last two episodes, is an incredibly fractured powerhouse, and someone like Danielle is probably better off getting rid of Terry and his tight-knit pals, then carving off a sub-group (say, her, Cirie, Courtney and Bruce) to get rid of Aras and Shane. Unless Terry offered one of those two final two, or offered both of them final three, he wasn't offering them squat.

Even worse, having revealed his posession of the Idol to Danielle, Terry damn sure should've been prepared to use it that night as a back-up plan. It was pretty obvious Austin was the next-biggest target, so he should've handed him the Idol before Tribal Council, with the understanding that if their plan worked, Austin would have to give it up to Danielle. That way, Aras would've gone home no matter what, and it would be easier to break Bruce or somebody else away.

So now not only does Terry only have one ally left, but now the bad guys all know he has the Idol, which will make him a target at every single Immunity Challenge. Sooner or later, we're going to get the trusty ol' plate-breaking contest, and everyone is going to smash Terry's plate first, just to force him to give up the Idol. And at that point, he will have zero margin of error. And if he loses the next IC, he's essentially screwed, because all Casaya has to do then is split their vote between Terry and Sally, and no matter who those two vote for, Sally goes home and Terry loses the Idol (unless he's willing to sell out Sally in the process, which he might be).

I don't think Tom was a mental giant, either, but the difference is that he had Ian to do the thinking for both of them. (Ian was the one who explained how imperative it was to get rid of Greg, immediately, and had to fight to convince Tom to go along.) Terry could've had his own brainy sidekick, but he got rid of Dan Fuego weeks ago in favor of keeping strong but stupid Austin and Nick. Yeesh.

All that said, I was really enjoying the episode up until Austin got the boot. This is the most pre-vote scrambling I think we've ever seen, and while it was a dumb plan, it seemed like Bruce and Danielle were both seriously considering it. Couple that with Austin and Terry's knowing smiles to each other at TC, and I thought for sure they had pulled it off -- or, at least, that they were smart enough to have Austin holding the Idol. Beyond that, I liked Terry's reveal of the Idol to Sally, because you could tell he had been dying to brag about it to someone ever since he found the damn thing. ("I found it in, like, 20 minutes! Now kneel before my mighty awesomeness!") I liked seeing Aras "rewarded" with breakfast in the wettest bed of all time, and I liked both challenges.

At this point, I'm pulling for a Cirie/Sally final two. Odds?

Meanwhile, after last week's semi-promising episode, "The O.C." went back to the dumb-ass plotting that it's been foisting on us for the last two seasons. Seth lying to Summer about a Brown-related matter was annoying enough the first time, but to trot out that stunt again? Marissa -- who has an alcohol overdose and a questionable shooting on her permanent record, and who hasn't been trying at school, or even going that often, for her junior and senior years -- gets into Berkeley? Sandy is such a manipulative dickhead that he actually tries to use his money to talk Ryan out of taking Sadie to Berkeley? Sandy is such a manipulative dickhead that he actually chooses the bribe over taking down the bad guy?

I don't really know what to say beyond that, except to wonder how they're going to contrive things so that all the kids wind up at UCSD next year (maybe they can go with Veronica and Wallace to Hearst College), or else how they're going to contrive that Seth and Summer wind up at Berkeley and how many episodes it'll take before Josh and company realize it's time to send Sandy, Kirsten, Julie and Dr. Roberts to the Far East to hang with Jim and Cindy Walsh. Then again, considering the ratings and the obvious creative meltdown, I'm not so sure "The O.C.: The College Years" is going to be anyone's problem.

Didn't watch or record "Earl." When "The Office" isn't on, I often don't bother. The rare instance of a lead-out driving a viewer to the show that airs before it.

What did everybody else think?

Oh, and in linkage, today's All TV column has me reviewing this Sunday's "West Wing" episode. The short version: though there's a little emotional reaction to Leo's death, it's mainly turned into a Santos/Vinick plot device. Blech.