anything other than what i’ve been trying to be lately
(or: august 26 — a thumbnail sketch)
posted at 12:56 am by brandon in tuesdays in the record store with brandon
Need more convincing that fall is definitely on the way? Look no further than this week’s music lineup, which features a staggering seven new releases (and not an ounce of filler in any of it!). So settle into your most comfortable chair and take a gander at the following brilliance:
Hot on the heels of last week’s triumphant Gossip Girl set arrives on DVD the fifth season of that resilient CW stalwart One Tree Hill, an irresistible cocktail of trashy plotlines and gorgeous young people that keeps chugging along just like the little engine that could. The series’ creative team took a huge risk this past season — one which, judging by the fact that “Desperate Housewives” copied it wholesale a few months later, ended up paying off dividends, in that it completely revived the energy level of the acting company — by leaping ahead four years into the future in episode one, thereby eliminating the contrived need to funnel all the kids into one college (“90210,” anyone?) for the sake of keeping all the characters together in one place following high school graduation. Another dicey move — this one far less successful, in my humble opinion — was the show’s disappointing decision to scale back its adult cast; Barry Corbin (whose character Whitey, Tree Hill High’s basketball coach, retired) and Moira Kelly (easily the show’s grounding force and its most relatable character — Karen, the protagonist’s mother) were kindly shown the door (though Kelly returned for one midseason episode revolving around her son’s doomed wedding), and Barbara Alyn Woods (the hilarious horndog Deb, the coolest cougar on network television) was dropped to recurring status. Still, the season-ending cliffhanger was a heartstopper (no pun intended there, but if you caught it, you know what I’m talking about), and as we gear up for season six (which begins next Monday night), what better way to prepare than by taking a leisurely stroll through the angst-drenched antics of the strike-truncated season five. (Incidentally, Target is advertising their version of this DVD set as containing “exclusive journal”, and I have the strangest feeling that this could be the protagonist’s much-ballyhooed novel, An Unkindness of Ravens (you have to watch the show to get it, I suppose). If that’s indeed the case, all I can say is, “Holy freakin’ crap!”)
