What I'm Watching: Hidden Palms (Series Premiere)

Hidden Palms: Season 1, Episode 1 "Pilot" (F-)

I apologize in advance to anyone who has never seen "The O.C." and thus will not understand a lot of the references I will be making. Perhaps it is a bit unfair that I cannot appreciate this show as a separate entity, but I am okay with it. To catch those up who are unfamiliar with "The O.C.", I will quickly summarize: Taylor Handley played Oliver, an unstable new rich kid who was insane and waved around a gun while holding Marissa hostage, and Michael Cassidy played Zach, often nicknamed "Ducky", who was a brief boyfriend of Summer in the show's second season. For my own sake, I will have to refer to Handley and Cassidy's characters as Oliver and Ducky, with no intention of every learning their characters' actual names.

Anyway, on this little CW show called "Hidden Palms", Oliver is a brainiac whose alcoholic father commits suicide right in front of him. One year later, newly hairstyled Oliver of course moves to a very rich area of Palm Springs because, well, what else is he going to do. He is a dedicated participant in AA meetings, much to the chagrin of his mother, who wants to leave the past in the past. Oliver is quickly introduced to his neighbors, who include Ducky, his very eager and seemingly friendly new pal, Liza, a bizarre science girl trying to reach out to her potential new friend in Oliver, and Greta, essentially a sexual being obsessed with running through sprinklers and speaking philosophically out of her ass.

In the first few minutes of the show, it is clear that this is a show filled with sex. Before even the first commercial break, Oliver has already chased Greta sort of creepily through a field, only to be pinned down by her for no reason other than to create sexual tension. Throughout the whole episode, everyone is flirting with anyone or anything. I am shocked that the episode's director, Scott Winant, is an Emmy winner whose previous credits include "thirtysomething" and "Huff". The whole time, I was thinking that someone needs to tell these actors to get away from each other and put some space. The blocking was way too closed in, and every scene became a sexual thing due to the unnatural proximity of the characters.

From the first fifteen minutes, this is clearly an "O.C." wannabe that tries to so hard to instantly make Oliver and Greta include Ryan and Marissa, with Ducky sort of as a Summer-like confident friend, and Liza as the awkward and shy, but ultimately Cool Person like Seth Cohen. The music desperately tries to find the teen genre, using a famous track from the "Garden State" soundtrack to underscore the embarassing running-through-sprinklers scene. But there are certain important differences to note between this and "The O.C." The parents are far less compelling, and appear to be taking a major backseat to the younger kids. And the kids have secrets! One of them even died! They did not even do that on "The O.C." until the end of the second season, and kept doing it until people started falling off cliffs and getting run off the road. And most importantly, Ducky is not your lovable, friendly nice kid on the block who chooses George Lucas over girls. After all, he kicks dogs! I am so definitely in for the long haul for this preposterous and inane "O.C." ripoff.