FALL TV EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

HART OF DIXIE

** (OUT OF ****)

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel like I should tell you that I was and continue to be a diehard The OC fanatic. Someday I’ll write about all of the reasons that it was great, and hopefully come off as a critic trying to explain an unheralded gem, as opposed to a 14-year old girl with the mind of an 8-year old boy and the body of a 54-year old boy. But until then, you’ll just have to take my word for it. I had no idea what Hart of Dixie was when I sat down to watch it, so imagine my shock and delight when I found out that not only does this show star Rachel “Summer Roberts” Bilson, but is also exec-produced by OC creator Josh Schwartz. On top of all of this, Jason Street is the love interest!!! And he can walk again!!!! I suddenly found myself more pumped for this show than any other debut of the season. And then I watched it.

 

Summer Roberts’ (which I will call her not just because she always be that character to me, but in this show she is the exact same character, “Ew” and all) life plan isn’t going according to how she saw it. Four years out of college, she was supposed to be a neurosurgeon. But in a plot twist only TV could afford us, her mentor says that she isn’t ready, because she needs to work on her bedside manner (as a surgeon?), and she might be better off being a General Practitioner for a year or so, maybe in the heart of Alabama. Perfect. Now I have a vague idea of what the show is going to be about. Summer Roberts makes the trek from New York to Alabama, and finds out that New Yorkers walk like this, but people from Alabama walk like this. This seems to cause some conflict between Summer and the other characters in the show, none of which are named Seth, Ryan, or Marisa. She struggles to fit in, decides to leave, delivers a baby, decides to stay. All predictable, but even its predictability is predictable, so it’s hard to bitch too much.

 

In the end, we have exactly what we knew we would — a show on the CW. It’s not offensively bad, and even has some moments when Summer Roberts can out-cute the dialogue, and make it pretty watchable. I don’t if I’ve mentioned this yet, but she was on The OC, and on that show she toke a character who was just supposed to be in the background for the first couple episodes and turned it into a leading role. If the show has one saving grace, it’s her, but it seems unlikely that that’s going to be enough.

 

TOMORROW: SUBURGATORY!!!

 

 

 

-Ryan Haley