What was on TV? Thurs, April 21, 2005

20 years ago Rob and Amber got married, though people would have to wait a month to see the wedding in primetime on CBS. Let's see what was on TV/

8:00 The OC on Fox

2x20 "The O.C. Confidential" (record Survivor on CBS)

At the beginning of the 2000s, nerds were outsiders. By the end of the decade they ruled popular culture and also the world. The OC was part of that transition. The OC made nerds cool.

Judging by this episode, everyone involved wishes they could go back to the way it was. Seth Cohen's fun little comic book project has real attention from publishers. He goes to a party in the valley where slick executives want to change the whole thing and also turn it into a video game and also use it to market body spray. It's a genuinely bitter satire of the commercialization of nerd culture, the way that creativity and community get co-opted and neutered by capitalism.

And the way these nerdy capitalists talk about Summer, the "vixen" from the comic book, is truly gross. Dismissive and superior, convinced they're so much better than this bimbo. Meanwhile, they totally fail to recognize that she played a real role in the creation of this comic they're so eager to buy and merchandise the hell out of! Summer bristles at this disrespect, and she recognizes that this world is just as superficial as the OC. Meanwhile, Seth is being a terrible boyfriend in his desperation to please these people. Which is how you know the show hates them, they're coming between our OTP! Actually, they're coming between two OTPs: Summer and Seth, and Seth and Death Cab (he misses their big guest spot to attend this terrible party.

9:00 Survivor (recorded)

10x10 "Exile Island"

One week after Stephanie LaGrossa was forced to survive on her own (well, a cameraman was there, but you get the idea) the producers conspired to make someone else do the same. And so Exile Island was born.

Janu earns a place in Survivor history as the first person ever sent to Exile Island. Janu clearly was not enjoying the Survivor experience. She lays in the hammock and seems genuinely depressed. She earns her tribemates' ire for reasons deserved (eating all the dessert without asking anyone!!!!) and undeserved (Katie thinks she has an annoying voice). But overall the edit has not been kind to her.

I was worried that the producers would paint her as a "weak" woman during her trip to Exile, contrasting her with Stephanie, the clear hero of this season. But Janu acquits herself nicely on her trip to Exile Island, and her confessional is very moving. But then she comes back and quits the game, the ultimate Survivor sin. And now we get the contrast between her and Stephanie, who tearfully explains how much she wants to stay in this game. But Janu's quit is also what allows Stephanie to stay in the game, the vote was not going her way. So they can't totally throw Janu under the bus. But they do throw her under the bus a little bit.

10:00 ER on NBC

11x18 "Refusal of Care" (record Project Greenlight on Bravo)

On this episode of ER, a woman is on hunger strike to stop her son's deportation. Of course this is all solved in the hour with a couple phone calls. And it mostly turns into a story about a mom trying to bond with her troubled son, not a story about a protester fighting injustice. In this week of all weeks, that just pissed me off.

On a lighter note, Nurse Ratched and the voice of Ursula the Sea Witch play two elderly friends who panhandle for extra cash and aren't ashamed of it! We needed more from them; they were delightful. A much-needed source of joy in this miserabilist era of ER.

I've decided they are lesbians, and I will be dreaming up plots for their hypothetical sitcom as I fall asleep tonight.

Want to know why women get pushed out of movies? Watch this episode. Director John Gulager got one of his friends hired as a script supervisor, a thankless and very important job. He is insecure and very bad at communicating, so he relies on her to do a lot of logistical work and keep the production on track. So she's stuck playing the bad cop all the time and telling everyone what he wants. The cast and crew don't want to get frustrated at Gulager, so they get frustrated with her. The producers then decide that she's the problem. They recognize the impossible position she's been put in, but argue that she's going about everything in the wrong way. How so? It's not really specified, but I somehow think everyone would be a lot more okay with her telling them what to do if she were a dude!

And so this poor woman gets fired, basically because she's trying to compensate for a lot of men who are bad at their jobs. Tale as old as time.

What Else Was On

• You know how sometimes Hollywood will latch onto a pretty person, and suddenly they start popping up on every show? In one night, Madchen Amick went on a date with John Stamos on Jake in Progress, then on another date with Joey Tribbiani on Joey, and then she played a social worker and girlfriend of John Carter on ER. Busy woman!
• Tonight's Tru Calling would be the final episode aired in America. The show was pulled from the schedule for May sweeps, never to return, leaving fans of Eliza Dushku the mortician who talks to the dead in the lurch.
• Highly recommend this lengthy MTV news segment about the development of the new Wonder Woman movie, featuring lots of interviews with Joss Whedon, who comes across like a smug dillweed in hindsight. Really interesting to see who they're considering for the part too (Jessica Biel, Catherine Zeta-Jones, etc.). And the terrible scepter of Catwoman is invoked. A true time capsule.
• On Friday, Lifetime premiered the reality show I Married a Princess featuring Casper van Diem from Starship Troopers and his wife Catherine Oxenburg, a member of the Yugoslavian royal family. Their daughter eventually got mixed up in the NXIVM cult and Oxenburg was featured in some of the documentaries.
• The season two finale of Joan of Arcadia featured Wentworth Miller as some kind of angel of death. This proved to be the series finale, as the show was soon cancelled. This was despite a CBS marketing stunt in which 50 people were hired to distribute cans of soup, hand warmers, and lottery tickets, and to hail cabs for random passersby in Manhattan. Recipients of these random acts of kindness were encouraged to "watch Joan of Arcadia, Fridays on CBS!"

TiVo Status

The TV movies Sucker Free City and Everything You Want, and one episode of Mystery! 4 hours.

Music, 20 years ago

Seth Cohen's favorite band Death Cab makes a trip to The OC this episode. Death Cab for Cutire has become a punchline in the years since The OC made them famous, but I liked this song! I'll listen to more from them.