i feel i must interject here
Lesson of the day:
If you're going to mutter "stentorian" and then snicker when you hear someone use that word on This American Life to describe highfalutin NPR-speak, you should do it with your car door closed. Otherwise, when you leave your vehicle, you'll discover the woman from the next car is laughing at you and giving you an impenetrable look that means she either has been listening to This American Life and shares your amusement over irony, or thinks you're a crack addict. Because there is no way to determine which it is, you mostly just feel mortified and wish you'd kept the damn door shut until you were done sniggering at the radio.

Quote of the day:
"Listening to this album is like being married to Britney Spears -- it's beautiful, it's magical, it's disorienting, and it's over in an hour."
-- Rob Sheffield, in his review of Air's "Talkie Walkie" in Rolling Stone.

Rant of the day (a little late):
To the writers of The O.C.,

For three episodes, those being the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's episodes, I was certain this show would eventually transcend its teenybopper roots and become something weird and offbeat and great.

And then came Oliver.

Lots and lots of Oliver.

I HATE Oliver. And not in that love-to-hate kind of way. Rather, I hate Oliver in that, if-this-lasts-much-longer-I-will-stop-watching-this-show kind of way.

Because Oliver is a plot contrivance and nothing more. Which might be OK if he weren't a singularly unimaginative, unoriginal, manipulative, irritating plot contrivance who can only engender unrealistic outcomes to the problems he creates. (Or if he'd say, DISAPPEARED about three episodes ago.) Oliver's only there to induce tension between Ryan and Marissa (and pretty much everyone else) because you got them together too quickly and eliminated one of the fundamental dramatic conflicts of the show. I'm all for tension, but only if it's going to result in actual character development instead of turning Ryan into someone who looks like a jealous psycho but will be righteously vindicated and freed of all consequences, and making Marissa an even more self-absorbed princess in need of rescuing than she already is.

The reason this wretched, wretched Oliver arc fills me with such woe is that I know you can do better. The B plot with Summer, Seth and Anna? Still great. Sandy Cohen? Almost makes me forget about Peter Gallagher's eyebrows. And there were those three magical episodes.

I hope you have some rational excuse. Tell me you were just in a rush when you wrote these shows, or you just needed some mediocrity to let you recharge your creative batteries for the rest of the season. Tell me it was a fluke. Writer's block. The dog ate the scripts. Anything. For crying out loud, do whatever you have to do with that gun incident you previewed to get rid of Oliver. There's enough psychosis on this show already.

All I'm asking is that you renew my faith. Give me something worthwhile to watch for the rest of the season. Take a sick day, have a beer -- just bring the magic back.

Song: The Postal Service, Nothing Better

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