The Ironist!! Little Miss Vixen!! Kid Chino!! Cosmo Girl!!
“The O.C.” is the only soap opera I’ve ever really watched, or loved. It makes me laugh; it makes me cry. It makes me TiVo “Survivor.” And it makes me crazy that a soap opera starring Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross can get an Emmy nomination for best comedy (!) while a soap opera starring the hilarious Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson goes begging. Season two of “The O.C.” had Bilson (she’s super-skinny and semi-nude in the September Stuff!) smooching a rain-soaked upside-down Brody dressed as Spider-Man. I love these two kids. There’s a scene in season two in which Bilson’s Summer accidentally knocks Seth Cohen’s toy horse off a table; as she retrieves the toy she mutters, “Sorry, Mr. Oats. Hope you don’t come up lame.” This makes me laugh. A grown man getting hit in the face with a bowl of salsa and falling off a porch? Doesn’t make me laugh! Season two also featured a hot blonde bartender who seduced both Seth and Marisa, and not a trace of Marisa’s pycho pal Oliver.
Quentin Tarantino loves “Kung Fu”! Do you think you know better than Quentin Tarantino? The third season, aired in 1974 and 1975, was this great series’ last. It began with Kwai-Chang Caine meeting up with The Order of the Avenging Dragon, assassins hand-picked by the emperor to destroy the man who killed the emperor’s nephew. (The emperor loved that nephew!) And if you can resist that? William Shatner and France Nuyen, who earlier traded fluids in “Elaan of Troyius,” appear in the season’s third installment. Late in season three there is a series-defining four-episode arc that featured not only David Carradine, but Ji-Ti Cumbuka, Leslie Nielsen, John Vernon, Carl Weathers, A Martinez and Tim McIntire, and involved Caine’s American half-brother, half-nephew and half-sister-in-law. David Carradine, who loves his cigarettes, adds commentary to two episodes, an introduction to the entire season, and a new documentary shot in China that follows him back the Shaolin Temple Monastery. If you purchase the new “Aqua Teen” set before this, may you be damned to Hell forever and ever and ever.
Speaking of David Carradine? Did you know his fabulous 21-year-old niece Ever played the recurring role of Tiffany Porter on “Once and Again”? Is true!! Once and Again’s second season saw the return of Tiffany, saw Lily and Rick try to merge their families, and saw the demise of Michael Steadman’s old boss Miles Drentell, who somehow emigrated from “thirtysomething.” And how cute is Sela Ward??
Oh, the crafty people at Warner Home Video knew what they were doing when they scheduled the release of Six Feet Under: The Complete Fourth Season two days after the amazing series finale reduced us all to quivering sad wet bowls of goo. At the start of season four? Lisa is already dead! Ruth had already married George! Claire already had her abortion and hadn’t quite slept with Edie! Creepy Arthur was still hanging around! Keith still hadn’t quite given adorable Michelle Trachtenberg her hot beef injection! And David hadn’t quite picked up the cute boy in the red hoodie!
In news of the near future, yet another entry in my dream season-set DVD list just became available for pre-order! Yes, it’s completely pathetic, but I think it was Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and not “All The President’s Men,” that drove me toward this embarrassing career as a quasi-journalist on the Internets. And let me tell you one thing about Carl Kolchak. Spooky Mulder never got it done. Kolchak got it done. The Ripper. The Mummy. The Energy Eater. Mr. RING. Every dang week. Without no stinking badge.