Picnics. Sprinklers. The delicious scent of coconut sunscreen. Grilling out. Diving into the community pool. Road trips. Tomatoes from the backyard. Freckles. Country Time Lemonade.
Fellow Latchkey Children of the 90’s, should not
Excessive Television Watching
also appear on this list?
Daytime television is such a forbidden pleasure, and so very addictive. My boyfriend watched The Price is Right every morning for an entire semester in 2004. I got up early to watch two Dawson’s Creek reruns every morning until they started to repeat, and made it to the gym by 1:00 for two episodes of Saved By The Bell. Afternoon dates with Stick Stickley? And who can forget The Real World marathons? Where the heck did those go?
Even though television has loosened its grip upon my daily schedule, I still tend to associate the summer heat with a nice, extended couch date with a few choice reruns.
This summer, however, I’m watching shows that are actually on television, airing for the first time, and I’m following more than one!
I wish I could say it was because they are all high-quality shows that are deserving of critical praise.
No sir.
Not a single one.
First we have, Make It Or Break It.
This ABC Family show doesn’t quite live up to it’s predecessor – Stick It, a modern classic of our time. There is a severe absence of gymnastic puns, trippy gymnastics montages, and Electric Six. However, it is still campy, cheesy fun. The one short-haired gymnast is the new girl at the gym. She is poor and has to hide it from everyone. But she’s really good at gymnastics and manages to bump off the bitchy-looking-blonde gymnast from her spot at Nationals. Despite being BFFs with nice-looking-blonde gymnast and tiny-brunette-who’s-having-a-secret-affair-with-a-boy-gymnast, she screws them over by having her rich daddy (who is inexplicably dating Candace Cameron) buy off their coach to another gym.
If that’s not convincing enough, let me point out the following two details.
1) In the first episode, Bitchy Blonde Gymnast basically tries to off the New Girl by messing her vault distances, clearly attempting to break her neck.
2) Watch this clip:
Then we move directly to NYC Prep
This is a documentary-style reality show on Bravo. It follows the lives of five prep school students living the high life in NYC, and one girl who goes to Stuyvesant, but hangs out with a lot of prep school types so I guess she made the cut.
Best things about NYC Prep:
1) Pondering exactly how spoiled, self-absorbed, and g.d. ENTITLED these children are.
2) Pondering the fact that based on their character and talents, they probably don’t deserve to become the next Titans of Industry, but they will anyway. Heck, some of them are already on their way!
3) Laughing at their lazy eyes.
4) Pondering how long, slightly dirty-looking hair with exactly ONE strande pulled completely out of place can be considered attractive.
5) Laughing at Sebastian, this 16-year-old Lothario who thinks he’s God’s gift to women, but proceeds to repell or annoy every girl on cast.
6) Laughing extra hard when he speaks French to woo the ladies.
But the hands-down best part of the show?
This little guy named PC.
He’s the star of the show, but not because he does anything particularly interesting. He’s just the most complex character on the screen – an 18-year-old who is obviously going through some sort of premature mid-life crisis. He wears eye-liner and occasionally admits to being bisexual, but sometimes denies it. He’s completely passive-aggressive towards his best friend, the Bitchy-Looking-Blonde. He wants to datethe younger girls on teh show, but changes his mind last minute and starts to verbally eviscerate them. His therapy sessions are part of the show, where he talks about how alone he feels in the Big City and how he’s had too much “Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll” for his 18 years. Then he goes to Cancun and gets wasted.
Oh, PC. When will you get over your angst? Will you grow up to be a CEO? A photographer? A trust-fund baby for the rest of your life?
Stay tuned! Later/tomorrow, we will move on to
Pregnancy Based Programming!
miss shortskirt 