Half of an O.C. Report

Cause I saw only the second half. Hence this will be an extremely brief entry.

Liked Seth's comic sketches of the gang as superheroes. He and Summer had a very sweet final moment together. Clearly not over each other, but what else is new. Seth seems unusually subdued these days. Maybe he's growing up.

For the rest - eh.

Line of the week: "Nice house." -Alex, to Caleb

Found "ER" more interesting tonight, actually. Hot-button topic of the week: Bad FDA approving drugs prematurely, causes much misery and grief (and kidney failure) to angelic teenage girl and her long-suffering parents.

It's a good subject, but treated way too heavy-handedly by the writers. They stacked the deck against the drug companies, despite half-hearted efforts to present both sides of the question...which amounted to showing Carter get on his anti-pharmaceutical-lobby high horse and the powers that be weakly protesting the folly of biting the hand that feeds them (in the form of research grants, medical education and clinic funding, etc.). That approach just makes it look like the pharm companies are bribing the medical community to keep mum about questionable drugs - which may not be far from the truth, but it's a lopsided version of the story.

I liked the whole teacher-student authority-subordinate sexual tension theme that was also running through the episode. It was handled much more gracefully than the main storyline. Loved Abby's last scene. That student of hers is a cutie, though - reminds me of a younger Mark Ruffalo.

All right, I'm out. Peace be with you - and also with Iraq.