The O.C. &Hawking
This article first appeared in the Age on September 11, 2004
Sometimes a columnist just has to wear her heart on her sleeve, just as Seth Cohen wears cute little Christmas trees on his in The O.C. (Channel 10, Monday, 9.30pm) for 'The Best Chrismuskka Ever'. I'll let Seth explain the term: 'For my father, a poor struggling Jew growing up in the Bronx, well Christmas meant Chinese food and a movie. And for my Mom, Waspy McWasp, it meant a tree, it meant stockings and all the trimmings.' The coming together of these traditions forms Chrismukka. I would suggest celebrating Chrismukka this week with group friends, pizza and wine. Then, sing the theme song: California. California, here we come.
To my surprise The O.C. is not appearing in the Top 10, though it is meant to have a 31.5% share of 16 to 39 year old viewers. And at least one forty-year-old viewer, who feels embarrassingly old to be having a crush on a fictional high school boy: I don't think I've felt this way since David Cassidy. The O.C. is a show with a little bit of Buffy, a little bit of 9210, a little bit of Thirtysomething, a little bit of Melrose and a big sense of humour. It's top notch, intelligent, fun soap.
O.C. stands for Orange County and the show is the creation of Joshua Schwartz who, at 26, is one of the youngest TV producers in Los Angeles. I am guessing it is he who brings together this fabulous merging of Valley Girl High School shtick and Jewish humour that underlies so much of this show. The O.C. does a particularly good job of getting stuck into class snobbery and its inherent anti-Semitism. (More alarmingly, John Safran also picks up this thread in John Safran Vs. God when he travels to Orange County to meet with the Grand Dragon of the KKK this week.)
The show's patriarch is played by Peter Gallagher. Remember him from Summer Lovers, that film about a threesome on a Greek island? Or Sex, Lies and Videotapes? He'd have to be the funniest, and hippest parent on TV. He adopts Ryan, a boy from Cino, and through him The O.C. pitches itself to older viewers via the not so subtle use of regular parent sex. Witty-boy-man Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) is a kind of brother to Ryan (Ben McKenzie). Ryan is from the wrong side of the tracks, broods, and wears tight white singlets. His pretty girlfriend, Marissa (Mischa Barton) has a father who is a white-collar criminal. She's tried to suicide once and drinks too much. In recent episodes Seth, who was never great with the girls, has had two women vying for his attention, most rivettingly the smart-but-shallow Summer (Rachel Bilson) who makes up for the hole that Cordelia left in our lives when she exited from Buffy.
And now, perhaps, from the fabulously ridiculous to the Sublime: Hawking (tomorrow night, ABC, 8.30pm). This modest BBC telemovie is the story of Stephen Hawking's life after his diagnosis with motor neurone disease when he was only 21 years old and given two years to live. The work he did in those two years culminated in a theory for the birth of the universe. In these years he also married Jane Wilde, an act of hope which was rewarded with 25 years of marriage and three children. This is a moving, and gently gripping piece of television. It's strength is Benedict Cumberbatch (Cambridge Spies, Spooks) as Hawking who manages to convey both the gravity and joy of being one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.
Posted by Sophie at 04:59 PM