Everybody goes mad come the Festive Season. It is standard TV care in the relationship dramas to have Valentine episodes, Halloween episodes, Thanksgiving... Generally I am very cautious of the Christmas episodes, ever since BEVERLY HILLS 90210 featured an impending accident with a bus, with the two buses avoiding collision by passing through each other. Well, gee, that is, like, very heart-warming, and feel free to include such a story-line in the TV Movie of the week, but keep it away from reality-based TV shows. Unsatisfactory drivel undermining the credibility of the show, stretching the believability factor.
Tonight it's Ryan and Taylor Townsend falling off a ladder together, knocked out the both of them, they wake up in an alternate universe (hell, isn't California already?) and they have to fix up the relationships between key characters who have now drifted apart. I have one word for you, no, make it two: Utter disorientation. This episode, I see that other reviewer gave it a 10, but this, this is absolute junk. We do need to see Ryan sitting there at him and Marissa's meeting place, the old lifeguard tower, but the stuff I am complaining about is the drawn-out dream that covers about 90% of the episode. This is a totally unpopular episode with me. The series suffers from the loss of Mischa Barton, they underplay bright newcomer Willa Holland, and they push this garbage through as an actual episode? I think Autumn Reeser is doing great, don't get me wrong, I like her, the crazy coo-coo dolly bird, but there is no denying that "the gap is just too big to fill" and there is only one who comes close, Willa.
Two things:
(1) They never should have given Mischa Barton the option to decide Marissa's fate by deciding whether she was (a) going to stay and play a character going in a wilder direction than the actress was willing to portray, or (b) quitting the show, thereby causing the Season 3 final episode's outcome. She chose the latter, and this doomed the show. A compromise should have been made, simply no more raunchy scenes with sweaty surfer-types for Princess Mischa. There would have been a full-length Season 4 and even, I'm sure, a Season 5!
(2) Wouldn't it have been great tonight if Ryan had stayed in the alternate universe? The show needed to get rid of him, he is boring. Yeah, ol' tough guy "Mr. Muscle" Ryan, who comes across like a storm brewing... in a tea-cup.
All the male characters have lost all their appeal. Seth too. Sandy as well. Even Summer is fizzling out. Kirsten's kinda still okay, but it's only Julie and Taylor Townsend that's on the rise (of the older characters) and newcomer Kaitlin steals the scene every time she is on the screen.
Well, only nine more to go...
