TVgasm Recaps

Well, it's summertime. The days are longer, the weather is warmer (or the same in LA), and the television season has ended with a welcome purging of "Friends". And while there are many things to enjoy this time of year such as barbecues and pool parties, we must not forget to show the Tivo some love. After all, summer is the time when some of our favorite television franchises emerge from a yearlong hibernation. Plus, Fox has tickled us pink with a highly publicized new slate of shows that includes a nice potpourri of sitcoms, drama, and reality shows. So in convenient list form, here is the TVgasm Summer Mini-Preview:

Like many people this summer, I am starting to go through a little bit of withdrawal knowing that it will be many months before my guilty Wednesday Night pleasure comes out with new episodes. Now before I get all of those e-mails from people who are pining over "The West Wing", you should know that I am talking about "The OC". And although I wasn't completely glowing in my previous comments about The OC, but it has grown on me. FOX, somehow sensing that there may be others that share this affliction, have brought us North Shore, which promises to show us viewers the good life in Hawaii quicker than you can say "Magnum P.I.".

Fox kicked off its new summer season in earnest tonight with the much ballyhooed premiere of sudser North Shore, which was hyped to be Las Vegas meets The OC but was closer to, uh, I don't know. Crap? Okay, it wasn't that bad. Unlike failed Fox superbomb, Skin, what this show lacked in writing or acting it made up for in campiness and a general lack of pretension. Yeah, the philosophical surfing metaphors from Twin Peaks alum Michael Ontkean were a bit much (and predictable), but the breezy, if not clunky, plotting kept us moving to each awkwardly placed commercial break.

Alohhhhhhhhhhaaaaa! The tide is high, waves crashing in, and I think we all might just get lei-d this summer, or at least we are up for some good Hawaiigasms thanks to the new Fox drama we have all been waiting for: NORTH SHORE.

After last week's pilot episode, I think a lot of people were down on North Shore. To be honest, the show had a lot to work on whether it be the plastic expressions of Brooke Burns or the confused ways they liked to fade their shots before commercials. I had a good amount of faith that things could get better. People are still comparing North Shore to The OC, and to expect the former to be the equal of the latter overnight was a little too much. With that being said, it seems that the after filming the pilot, Fox sent writers from the North Shore to sit on the set of The OC, and it looks like they picked up a few pointers.

Grab your surfboard. A high tide has hit the North Shore, bringing brand new facial expressions and cleavage bearing dresses to Brooke Burns. Our latest guilty pleasure emerged from the awkward confines of its pilot episode and adopted a more banter-centric format to decent effect. Borrowing heavily from The OC in terms of tone, dialogue, music, and Amanda Righetti, the North Shore firmed up its badinage a little as it took baby steps away from the melodrama graveyard. The show assaulted us with about half a dozen storylines ranging from the intriguing (welcome to the North Shore, Tessa) to the inconsequential (Gabriel, stop hanging out with the Jew-fro kid). At the end of the day, I'm thinking this show might be a keeper, and here are four reasons why:

This just in. Rich people are spoiled and loathe the presence of people below them, unless they are playing games with them and breaking their hearts. If you haven't caught onto this theme of the North Shore yet, go find your local World Workers Party representative for some re-education. All kidding aside, the North Shore does rely heavily on the differences between the working stiffs and fat cats for most of their drama and almost all of their story lines. This week we watch as Nicole's friends jet set their way into the Grand Waiameia Hotel for the sole purpose of rescuing the hotel heiress from the peons who were planning nothing more than a quaint bonfire on the beach for her birthday. With all the coke they need to last the weekend, there is no question that everything is going to go smoothly during their stay.

Or not.

Oh dear. That about sums up my thoughts on the latest installment of North Shore. I predicted last week that this season's "number one new drama" would take us through some tedious episodes in order to explain how each and every one of the characters arrived at their present locations. Unfortunately, my prediction was correct and we were treated to easily the worst episode of the season.

The North Shore was back to its silly antics this week as several cast members found themselves in contrived and campy scenarios. MJ and Chris's date went sour when they accidentally got abducted by pot farmers. Oops! Tessa meanwhile orchestrated a police sting on her con artist ex. And Brooke Burns, well, she did nothing. Hmmm... I wonder if that's why this episode was a notch above the rest.

This week, North Shore continued it's on again, off again relationship with its fans with what can be considered the best episode of the season. By some form of chance, all of the good episodes are also the same episodes where the viewers are given Mary Kate sized bites of Gabriel. As an added bonus, the producers left us with Ashley sized pieces of Nicole. Without the burden of keeping those two story lines afloat, the writers were able to concentrate on more important things, like MJ and Tessa and the story behind their crazy exes.

I for one actually had some faith that the latest episode of North Shore would break the streak of mixed episode that has been plaguing this summer's requisite Hotel Drama. Last week's episode was excellent - while there were some laughable moments, it was very enjoyable. Dylan Bruno joined Jennifer Alden on the list of TVgasm friends who have made it onto the show, automatically adding a little bit more excitement to the episode. Finally, the writers were going to center their story around the appearance of the Vice President, or at least what they picture the Vice President would be in the North Shore Universe. Still, even Jimmy Kimmel can stay sober enough to make funny jokes about a vice president, shouldn't the writers of North Shore be able to do the same?

Most programs on television today ride try to climb the slippery slope to success. On one hand, your show must feel new and edgy to do well. If it is boring or doesn't bring something new to the table, you bore your fans and the network execs may not even let it get out of the pilot stage. On the other hand, your show can't be too far out there, or you won't find a mass audience to stick around. If the execs think your show is only going to last six episodes, they would rather throw some reality programming together on the cheap and let that ride for six weeks instead. North Shore fits on this hierarchy of quality wherever they place good concepts saddled with mediocre acting and unfocused writing.

If you are a viewer continuing to watch North Shore, you must either be a glutton for punishment, or dying to get a better look at Tessa, played by Amanda Righetti. Considering the show is not on cable and thus without any nipple or even a little butt crack to be had, you would have to be hard up for some images of her having sex to proceed with this death march. I wouldn't even waste my time writing this down if I wasn't working at a job affording me approximately 7.5 hours of free time per day. North Shore is pretty bad and it is annoying how they try to gimmick their way to popularity. The writers are continually finding ways to awkwardly begin or finish a scene. This week we are forced through a painful Mark McGrath cameo, which appeared about as natural as Theresa Heinz Kerry speaking at Bob Jones University. Mark McGrath is now going to be associated with so many other B and C-listers who made their own cameos on the show. I bet he either got drunk and lost a bet, or slept with somebody and forgot he made some promises. Then again, maybe he is just in the B-list like most everybody in this town.

Because of the Olympics on NBC and some mild success with Reality Shows such as Meet My New Mommy and Renovate My Family, FOX delayed showing a new episode of North Shore until Labor Day. The show has been up and down, but there has been enough T and A for me to at least feign a mild interest in the show. It's also one of the best places to catch the latest preview of The OC, which is reason enough to catch the show. Continuing with the theme of "If it's good enough for the OC, we can do it in Waikiki"(i just made that up myself), the writers decided to add an arson to the world of North Shore to add a little drama, and some near-death experience. What's better is that the writers decided on a story line that doesn't force characters to stretch their marginal acting talent through inconceivable circumstances. Will it be enough to keep the North Shore on the air? Hey, it's not like this show is on ABC, there is always hope.

Throughout this entire season, TVGasm has taken you on a little journey that is called North Shore. I for one still think the show has potential, but oh my God, I think that I may gouge my eyes out half the time I am watching. This latest episode was the last one before the producers decided to shake things up and pull Shannon Doherty into the cast. If her addition adds some spice to the episodes like the rumored added spice to the set, it may just be worth watching. Until then, we have to deal with the current show as it is composed, and that means we sit through what is becoming less and less tolerable each week. But hey, if you want to brush up on some cliché driven action that would put Bunim/Murray to shame, keep on tuning in. If you don't care at all, maybe you will get some enjoyment by letting me "do what I want to do" and rip this thing to shreds.

Coming into this last Monday of September, I was clinging to my last few shreds of hope that North Shore would be able to pick itself up and make the rest of the season worthwhile. Sure, Fox has already committed to a full slate of episodes, but that's not enough to keep me watching. Not even the increasing parade of hot 18-25 year old ass was enough to keep me going. Believe it or not, I actually want the shows I watch to produce some sort of plot and character development; the shows I enjoy might even do them well. It's only been a couple of episodes into the Shannon Doherty experiment, but from the looks of things it may be just enough to make the show enjoyable. It was at least convincing enough that I won't delete the Season Pass from the Tivo.