Time for a little winter TV update. It's one of my main forms of recreation now, since the husband made us get that tivo-like digital Comcast TV thing last month, breaking a long streak of successful TV avoidance. Thanks, husband.

The OC, season 2

Feel free to peruse my character roundup from the mixed bag that was season 1, in which I rate the tediously revolving lazy susan of characters one by one. This season, the new character choppers have copiously dumped sparkly acting wannabe's into the cast, in the form of a new and notably cookie-cutter love interest for each of the four teen principles of the show. Pardon my yawning.

So far this season, I am sensing that the shark is in the waters. This show peaked early, probably about the last time Ryan punched someone in season 1. Notes from season 2:

• I like the way the writers abruptly rebooted the Ryan pregnancy scare plot line from season 1 with graceless "oops, never mind" writing in episode 1, and quickly refashioned Ryan into one half of a coy, giggling AP physics lab partner plot contrivance nauseatingly reminiscent of Dawson's Creek. This show seems like it is under the powerful influence of someone with incredibly whimsical ideas in need of instant gratification: the network? Josh Schwartz? Marketing surveys? "Ryan's blue collar anomie is not playing well with the born agains. We need to refocus, people. And fast."

• "Peach Pit After Dark" plot action, with the randomly new center of plot line action, "The Bait Shop." Please. Every other episode is a Rooney video. Any band appearing at the Bait Shop should be immediately expunged from iTunes playlists just to punish the cynical marketing goons at Fox.

• All four of the "love interest" characters fell off of some turnip truck of Gap ad background dancers, and none of them are worth mentioning by name. Each one embodies a stunningly unimaginative stereotype: the daffy, high-achieving good-girl with a scrappy 'tude (complete with Peta sticker on her junker car), the pearly-toothed renaissance jock with a heart of gold, the flinty tattooed bar-maid with, again, a heart of gold (lot of those to go around), and the piece de resistance, the sexy gardener (Desperate Housewives anyone?) who is bedding down his employer, raising eyebrows of social stratification in the process (in other words, he isn't white). For the love of god, this is boring stuff, usually befitting a show like this in season three or four. Problem here is, the writers already hooked up and broke up all of the main characters in season one, because they had all of the patience of a six year old on Christmas morning, regarding the pacing of the plot. The result will continue to be diminishing returns, as any degree in rocket science would tell you.

• On the plus side! Greatly improved hairdos all around, on the male side of the equation. The hair and makeup people listened to all of my criticism from last season, and even, as a totally unexpected bonus, managed to make Jimmy remotely attractive as well. Kudos, hair and makeup. Ryan's hair is back to looking remotely plausable for a boy of his supposed age, goodbye tufted, new-country 'do (although as the season wears on, I suspect we will see some arty fluffing of Ryan's coiff as cynical marketing people suggest that user panels indicate an insatiable lust for fluffed-up, feminine hairstyles on boy pop idols). Sandy's hair is up off the forehead, and out of the way of the magnificent eyebrows, although I am still waiting for the wet suit scenes. Were it not for Sandy and Ryan, and their collective hotness, this show would definitely lose me as a viewer.

Ok, I was about to start discussing the weird cable show "Significant Others", with the strangely hot slacker husband with a rock victim haircut and horn-rims, in addition to the old news that is the BBC comedy "The Office", which offers me the endearingly bitter sad-sack Tim, and I ran out of time. Crap. I also find myself inexplicably watching "Desperate Housewives" as well, which offers nothing in the way of attractive people to observe, although the husband would surely disagree.

Oh man, this is really starting to add up. Time to cancel Comcast tivo-thing post haste and take up kayaking or some other life-affirming, "I'm a do-er, not a watcher" kind of activity, so I am not really pissed off on my deathbed about my idiotic life choices.

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