Josh Schwartz just might have me hooked again on a show I have no business watching. I avoided Gossip Girl all last season – after all, how could I really justify to myself watching a show where the target audience is 18 to 34-year-old women?
But when my new wife sat down to watch the season premier of the second season this week, she didn’t have to twist my arm to get me to join her. See, I have a soft spot in my heart trashy evening dramas, especially if they feature teens behaving badly. I wondered if Gossip Girl could match the quality of Schwartz’s previous creation, The O.C.
I was also afraid of getting too attached, however. The O.C. began as a great show, and it was one I watched religiously. But it too quickly became a caricature of itself, as main characters began to behave more and more ridiculously.
My wife’s (then girlfriend’s) family introduced me to the scandalous world of The O.C., Schwartz’s show about teenagers and their parents in high-society Orange County, one winter break during college. The show was in the middle of its second season, and I ripped through the first on DVD so I could catch up with the salacious stories of Marissa, Ryan, Seth and Summer.
The O.C. wasn’t written for me, but I was instantly attracted to the characters on the show – they had heart, and the ones that didn’t were just as fun to hate. How can you not like a father who goes surfing every morning and works as a public defender? Or a kid who is constantly quipping one-liners and loves comics?