Posted by: haro1d
Well, another One Tree Hill episode down … and the drama continues to unfold.
In case you missed it, here’s the OTH rundown for this week: Haley threw caution to the wind and submitted a demo to Peyton’s label. They’re making an album together — and by mixing business with friendship have jeopardized their relationship without knowing it. Nathan is trying to get back on the basketball court, but Quentin — fresh from the doctor’s office after Lucas forced him to go back for a second hand exam — was so unpleasant on the court with him, Nathan just didn’t want to play. Mouth invited Millicent to move in and she freaked out, and told him that she’s a virgin. (She’s moved in anyway.) Dan Scott is struggling with fitting back into society, and we finally had the reappearance of Deb, Nathan’s mom (returning as Haley’s and Nathan’s new nanny.) And in an adoption story that smacks of science fiction, Brooke went from last week’s interview to having a baby in her hands by the end of tonight’s episode.
But it really doesn’t matter what happened tonight. Some loose ends progressed to being tied up, other story lines frayed to form new conflicts. And that’s just how a show like this goes — it’s like a big cable-knit sweater that you keep on knitting, and knitting, and knitting, and knitting …
I’ve said it before, but my main motivation for watching OTH is that it’s on — my wife watches it every week, and we still have a good time cracking up at it. But in spite of all of the pointing and laughing, it’s been an interesting experience to get sucked in by a show like this. It’s hard to call it a guilty pleasure since the pleasure is rather tempered, and as a result I don’t feel particularly guilty. What’s most interesting, I have to admit, is seeing exactly how shows like this struggle to keep viewers engaged without sacrificing credibility. Fortunately, OTH has never really worried too much about that.
In the bottom of a long-ignored drawer of my desk, I recently found the original screener for the OTH pilot episode. It made me think back to where this show started, and where it’s been since: Nathan and Lucas hated each other. Dan Scott had half the town at the end of his puppet strings. Nathan and Peyton were the troubled couple, Brooke was working hard at building her reputation as the school tart, and Lucas’ mom and the late Keith hadn’t even gotten together yet. Since then, Lucas has bounced from Peyton to Brooke, back to Peyton (with a few odd flings mixed in). Nathan and Haley went from a student/tutor relationship to husband and wife with a 5-year old kid. Brooke is a successful business owner and an adoptive mom. Mouth went from being a virgin to moving in with one.
None of these progressions are all that remarkable. It’s all the goofiness that goes on in between that’s so preposterously amusing. The cheating. The killing. The dishonesty. The drugs, the violence and the massive injections of psychopathology. All of this stuff happens in real life, of course. But who knew all of this could go on in a small town, to such a small number of people. Many of us have a little bit of this kind of drama once in a while, but really, when you run into people who have this much insanity going on in their lives, the healthy reaction is to stay away, not tune in week after week.
But that’s just it — it’s the power of TV. We let ourselves be drawn in to a show like this week after week to see if it will deliver on the promise of more craziness. What will it be this week? Will Dan Scott get together with Brooke? Will Lucas end up poisoning his mother?
Tune in next week to find out.