Newport Beach struggled with decision to honor "The O.C."The mayor on Thursday handed out keys to the city, despite reservations about the drunken teens, naughty mothers and spoiled socialites that populate the Fox drama. So he honored "The O.C." not for its plots, but for the buzz and tourist dollars it has created. "It says they're getting the keys to the city of Newport Beach, but it's actually a beer bottle opener," jokes Mayor Tod Ridgeway. "Seems appropriate, doesn't it? ... But I won't go into the morals and lifestyles of the characters." (/related story)Fox going all out for "Thursdays Move to 'The OC'" / But what if it fails?
I was goin' to post up the guest list of the upcoming episodes but I don't want to spoil things for people, so I will just send you the link. Please note that it's not completely correct and that some people have been seen before (some obvious, some not so much)
posted by Jen @ 4:13 PM |
Rockin' The OC If you missed Rachel on the Late Late Show (dammit, I knew I was forgetting something when I was watching my umpteenth hour of my OC dvd), click and there's a mini recap on the rumor mill surrounding the love triangle (Adam-Rachel-Justin Timberlake) and engagement rumors.
Question:I've always felt that adding new characters usually shows a lack of ideas for the original characters, and it seems that most of the time when a show resorts to that it adds nothing to the show and usually just goes downhill. For example, the already-bland One Tree Hill added two, and in my opinion they haven't added anything and the season has been a major drop from its already low level. I recently heard that The O.C. was adding four new characters this season. I don't know how major these characters will be, but it seems pretty early and four seems excessive instead of just one or so to spark things up, considering there's just been one season of plotlines. I know it is too soon to complain and I'm sure it will still be enjoyable, but as Josh Schwartz has already said the show will change pretty significantly, do you think there is any cause for concern? — Steven
Matt:No. I've seen the first two new episodes, which admittedly focus mostly on the core regulars, and they're great fun. We just have to wait and see who these new characters are, how they're played and how they're used. If they're as annoying and absurd as Oliver, then The O.C. may be in trouble. But I have more faith than that, and I also feel that if a soap can't successfully and continually introduce new characters to make things messy and interesting for the regular cast, then it's doomed.
And check out the pics. Some are just promo pics, some are from Season 2.
posted by Jen @ 8:37 PM |
I posted A LOT so make sure you read all the little news articles and such by clicking PAST NEWS (October 2003 to Present) when you get to the bottom of the page, alright? Yes, you really need to. What do you hafta lose?
posted by Jen @ 8:35 PM |
Watch with Kristin
See, my new friend Libby had a small but brilliant idea: make T-shirts that say "I'm a Seth girl" or "I'm a Ryan girl" and sell them online. Fans of The O.C. have logged on from across the globe--we're talking Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Tasmania (where the devil is that?) and the United Kingdom...the list goes on and on.
And regardless of beliefs, nationality, race, age, creed or bra size, it seems that O.C. fans worldwide are all about Seth Cohen. (Well, nearly everyone--the breakdown is 75 percent Seth and 25 percent Ryan, with a large Ryan constituency in Britain and Denmark.) My suggestion to the future President of the United States? Bring the next peace summit to Newport Beach, California--and wear your Ryan tee.
That said, I have shocking news. After facing Benjamin McKenzie (Ryan) on the set a couple of weeks ago while wearing an "I'm a Seth girl" tee (an encounter you can see in person right here), I realized that I had made a woeful error in judgment. So, I now stand up and say, loud and proud, "I'm a Ryan girl!" If you met him in person, trust me, you'd say the same. But the choice is yours, tubers, and I suggest you make it fast. In this Monday's chat (at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT) we're giving away 10 "I'm a Seth girl" and "I'm a Ryan girl" T-shirts (your pick), plus five copies of The O.C.: The Complete First Season DVD box set, to celebrate the start of the new season. (Read the rules.)
But enough about decision 2004. The real question of the hour is: "Whom do Marissa, Ryan, Summer and Seth choose to snog this season?" Lucky for you, I've stalked the cast on the set of their "high school" (really, an all-girls college in the hills of Hollywood) and at last week's Fox Fall Launch Party, so I have gobs of goodies to spill. Yee haw!
The O.C. Dating Game: "This year won't be about Seth, Summer, Ryan and Marissa." Those words from Josh Schwartz, the executive producer and creator of The O.C., nearly sent me into cardiac arrest, but he clarified that he means it's not only about them. "We have four new characters coming in right out of the gate, and they're going to cause some problems, and they guarantee that the couples everyone wants to see get back together aren't getting back together anytime soon."
And so, it seems, all four of our O.C. teens are getting new love interests. But can you guess who goes with whom? Let's take a look at the original bachelors and bachelorettes and the new-season newbies and get the scandalous scoop on what's ahead!
Bachelor Number One--Seth: He's aliiive! His existence on set proves Seth did indeed survive the high seas. "Unless I'm his twin brother," Bachelor Number One jokes with raised brow. So, what's up for the world's latest obsession? "There's going to be less of him on campus being pushed around by water-polo players," Adam Brody says of Seth. "He's still a goofy idiot. He's still a nerd. But the girl he gets involved with is a bad girl, and you'll know she's bad by her one butterfly tattoo. In a way, it's funny actually. Ryan and Seth slightly switch roles; Ryan is better behaved."
Bachelor Number Two--Ryan (Swoon): Big changes are in store for our man Ryan, primarily, it seems, because Schwartz also has realized his character doesn't do the real man justice. "Benjamin McKenzie is a really smart guy, a funny guy, and we want to start writing toward that part of his personality," Schwartz says. "Last year was about his past, this year will be about his future." Ben himself adds, "I think we're going to ease up on the fistfighting a little bit; I haven't had a black eye yet. Seth's the troublemaker this year."
Hombre Numero Tres--DJ: Holy second coming of the gardener on Desperate Housewives! DJ, played by Nicholas Gonzalez, is the lawn boy who tends to Caleb's shrubbery. He's Latino, and he's delicioso! When I ask Nicholas which O.C. chiquita he'd pick in real life and after a pained pause, he replies, "I'm a brunette man. I love my Latin women, so I'd have to say Summer. Sorry, Mischa."
Bachelor Number Four--Zach: "He is sort of the WASP Seth, aka the anti-Cohen, and a formidable potential opponent for Seth," Schwartz says of Zach, played by Michael Cassidy, whom I met in yummy person at the Fox party. "The show is all about mixing things up," he tells me, "and I am the mixer." He's also suave, well-spoken and the son of a U.S. congressman. Attack, Captain Oats, attack!
Bachelorette Number One--Marissa: "I think you see her general rebellion at the beginning of the season," Mischa says of her booze-chugging alter ego. "She's definitely fed up with everything and that does involve drinking and lashing out...It was fun, I got to throw things, and you know, let it all out. I was screaming so loud. It was like, 'Wow! I haven't done that in a while.' " Not since the last naughty tidbit penned by Teddy C., I'm guessing.
Bachelorette Number Two--Summer: "You know we're supposed to keep our mouths shut, right?" So says Rachel Bilson when asked what's up with her character. Still, she does seem to have some inside info on one of the bachelors, Zach. "He's different from Seth but also similar in a lot of ways, like comic books." As for the actor, Michael Cassidy: "He came highly recommended from McG because he was up for Superman. He was the only one Josh Schwartz saw for the part."
Bachelorette Number Three--Alex: With her new rocker 'do it's tough to tell, but Alex is actually Olivia Wilde, star of last season's most-hyped flop, Skin. Who knew? According to Schwartz, Alex is "the bad girl who runs the Bait Shop, which is the new club where the kids are going to be hanging out and bands will be performing. She's our Nat, if you will...you know, at the Peach Pit."
Bachelorette Number Four--Lindsay: Shannon Lucio was filming the day I was on set, and describes her character, Lindsay, as "bookish, motivated and a little bit of an outsider. I'm kinda like a smarter female version of Ryan." When asked who she'd choose in real life, Shannon says, "Well, I better say Ryan, right?"
And if you can't figure out who's with whom after that, you've killed way too many brain cells in front of the tube.
Speaking of Ryan, I should tell you that Ben and I did make peace at the Fox party last week. After deadpanning, "Oh, it's you," upon seeing me, he laughed and smiled when I pronounced my conversion to Cult Ryan. "You are forgiven," he said, leaning in for a quick hug, then whispering, "Just make sure you tell Brody that."
Stay tuned for more O.C. scoop in this week's chat and on Thursday's E! News Live at 7 p.m.!
If you've driven around Los Angeles this week and haven't spotted a billboard or bus shelter sporting a shiny new ad for "The OC," Chris Carlisle would probably like to hear from you.
The Fox marketing chief is heading up the network's effort to get viewers this message: "Thursdays Move to 'The OC.' " If his plan works, "You're not going to be able to go anywhere without running into our spots," Carlisle promised.
Among the details of Fox and Warner Bros. TV's marketing efforts on behalf of the show: Carlisle said, "In order to get that audience, we needed to do a massive buy on cable, targeting core viewers everywhere they live."
In addition to no-brainer ad buys on such nets as MTV, VH1, Lifetime, TBS and E!, Fox is spending coin on microniche players such as the N, Oxygen and Fuse.
Radio ads for the show are omnipresent, and spots for the show are all over the Internet via numerous viral campaigns. Yahoo! has been airing exclusive interviews with "OC" cast members and producers during the 12 Thursdays leading up to the premiere.There are countdown clocks in New York, Los Angeles and on Fox's Web site, all anticipating the days/hours/minutes until the show's back. In Times Square, Fox has rented out the giant Reuters sign, which will feature a flurry of "OC" images and a countdown leading up to the relaunch.
Fox is even spending coin on outdoor advertising in major cities -- a rarity for the net -- and handing out "OC" book covers to 2.5 million high school students.
"We've put in a lot of different creative elements to keep drawing (shoppers) in to the campaign," Carlisle said. "As soon as you walk into the mall, you're in 'OC' Land."
In malls with FYE music/DVD stores, the campaign will go even further, with in-store displays and contests that will let fans win the banners. Cosmetics retailer Sephora is also doing an "OC" promotion.
All Warners ads hyping the DVD release also mention the Nov. 4 premiere of "The OC," while many of Fox's ads touting the return of the show urge viewers to go out and buy the DVD. The CDs and DVD also have stickers touting the show's November return. Fox is partnering with Warner Home Video and Victoria's Secret for a nationwide college campus screening tour that gives students an advance screening of the "OC" premiere.
Partnering with rival
It's not every day that a News Corp. company freely directs consumers to spend their coin on a Time Warner product. But WBTV exec VP Craig Hunegs said Fox has been "remarkably cooperative" in its marketing plans.
"Each of these businesses go hand in hand with one another," he said. "It's a partnership in the best sense: Promotion of the DVD helps promote the Fox broadcasts, and Fox's promotion of the show helps promote the DVD."
Rosemary Marks, exec director of TV marketing for Warner Home Video, said the studio "sees it as a symbiotic relationship" and noted that several divisions within Time Warner also cut through red tape to make Tuesday an unofficial "OC" D-Day.
A good example of the internal synergy: Consumers who buy the "OC" DVD get $5 off the cost of subscribing to "The OC" Insider.
posted by Jen @ 5:17 PM |
For the first time, fans will be able to go to the People's Choice Awards Website (www.pcavote.com) and vote for their favorites themselves, instead of hoping for a call from a pesky pollster.
Favorite TV Drama: Alias, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Gilmore Girls, The O.C., Sopranos
Watch with Kristin From benneingw: TeenHollywood.com is reporting that Rachel and Adam of The O.C. are engaged. Please say it isn't so! It isn't, and I'm not just saying that--the rumor is not true. Neither is the Star magazine report that they broke up. They are together and happy, and basically, there is no big scandal to spill!
From jakegyllenhaal22: Guess you don't know, yet, but Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson are engaged according to a number of news sources...Another one bites the dust. No, they di'in'! My sources say it's all a publicity stunt for the new season and not started by the two of them. By the way, wasn't everyone saying they broke up last week? I can't keep all these rumors straight. I just know they looked together, but not engaged, as of five days ago. And I checked in with Rachel's publicist today, who says it is not true. She says, "They are not engaged."
From sam429: Any more info on The O.C.? Only 10 days, six hours and 41 minutes to go! (Fox sent us all fancy clocks, and I am currently wearing mine around my neck with pride.) There's more than one new love interest this season--let's just put it that way, because Josh Schwartz will have my ass on a plate if I utter another word. Anyhoodle, I met the new castmembers at the Fox party on Tuesday, and they are all ridiculously good looking, all four of 'em. (Interesting number, eh?)
posted by Jen @ 5:10 PM |
Don't Feel Bad for Feeling Good: Guilty Pleasures Chrismukkah in October?No, but it sure feels like it for us devotees of The O.C., as we not only have the much anticipated second season right around the corner (Nov. 4, people!), but this week, The O.C.: The Complete First Season DVD box set (Warner Home Video) and a pair of O.C. soundtracks--Music from the O.C.: Mix 2 and Music from the O.C.: Mix 3--Have a Very Merry Chrismukkah (Warner Bros.)--fall into our Seth Cohen-lovin' laps.
Tassel Hassle O.C. golden girl Mischa Barton, normally the belle of every Hollywood ball, looks like a wilted wallflower at the Fox Fall 2004 party in West Hollywood. This shapeless gold-fringed flapper frock, worn with (can you believe it?) gold lamé cropped boots, is beyond a misdemeanor--it's a serious fashion felony. We love ya, Misch, so we're gonna just file this blunder under What Was She Thinking? and try to move on. --- OC on ET!
posted by Jen @ 4:36 PM |
Monday, October 25, 2004
Okay, I've seen the first two episodes of the second season of "The O.C.," but Josh Schwartz, the creator and executive producer, asked us very nicely not to reveal the juicy secrets. So, I will only tell you that the gang will be hanging at a new club called "The Bait," that we will see Peter Gallagher sing this season, that Marissa's sister Caitlin is being shipped off to boarding school (I'm just glad they remembered she exists), that Mischa Barton will make a joke about how skinny she is (take that, tabloids) and that Ryan will be revealed to be super-smart. I'll also tell you I thought the first two episodes were highly entertaining full of what we've come to expect from "The O.C." -- humor, drama, snappy dialogue and our collective increasing love for Seth Cohen. (zap2it.com)
posted by Jen @ 4:08 PM |
"Hot Mamas" all the rage in TV dramasThey are all over the tube -- from "The O.C." to "Desperate Housewives." "Yes!" says Joanna Weiss. "Women can still be hot, even if they've passed the 18-34 demographic. Not just in terms of sex appeal, either. Their TV ascendancy springs from money, demographics, and the realization that teenagers might not be advertisers' holy grail after all."
After a whirlwind year in the spotlight, the cast of The O.C. is older, wiser and ready to dish some dirt.
The Bait Shop — a gritty-chic fun house of a bar with black walls and a lipstick-red beanbag room — might be the last place you'd expect to find Newport Beach's elite gathered for a bash. But, since this is a party on The O.C., that's hardly the only surprise in store. First, deliciously wicked Julie Cooper (Melinda Clarke) manages to stir daughter Marissa (Mischa Barton) from perpetual mope mode by delivering a bombshell about the latter's new boy toy that sends her storming for the exit. Then Seth (Adam Brody) causes mom Kirsten (Kelly Rowan) to freak when he introduces her to a fetching, tattooed spitfire (Olivia Wilde). But the most startling moment comes when Sandy (Peter Gallagher) suddenly chucks his tie, jumps on stage and serenades his wife for their 20th anniversary.
The song (Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up on Me") may be meant as an apology for nearly forgetting the occasion, but it could also serve as an impassioned plea to O.C. fans. In its first season, the series — a fizzy cocktail made up of equal parts soap, self-aware comedy and soulful family drama — had viewers collectively buzzed on the exploits of Marissa, Seth, Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), Summer (Rachel Bilson) and the rest of the überhot and filthy-rich residents of Orange County, California. But the season finale aired nearly six months ago — a virtual eternity to its fickle young-adult audience. Adding to the show's precarious future: Fox's risky decision to move the drama from its proven Wednesday at 9 pm/ET time slot to Thursday at 8, where it will face such stiff competition as Survivor and Joey. "I am terrified," admits creator Josh Schwartz. (Well, it might not be so bad. "The O.C. has a highly developed fan base," says media analyst Stacey Lynn Koerner of Initiative. "That's a powerful thing to have to compete with.")
To welcome viewers back, Schwartz is upping the melodrama in Season 2, which premieres November 4. Ryan — last seen packing up the wife-beaters and returning to Chino to make a go of it with pregnant ex Theresa (Navi Rawat) — is even broodier than usual, thanks to his dead-end construction job and loveless relationship. (But don't knit those booties just yet: Word is, Theresa tells Ryan that she lost the baby.)
Seth, who set sail alone in the finale, is living in Portland, Oregon, where Sandy sends Ryan to plead for his return. After some convincing, Seth comes home and hooks a job at the Bait Shop, the gang's new hangout, a sort of Peach Pit After Dark, where cutting-edge bands like Modest Mouse and the Killers take the stage.
Meanwhile, Marissa's working her self-destructive poor-little-rich-girl streak, numbing the pain from her breakup with Ryan by drinking and rebounding with the gardener (Nicholas Gonzalez). "It's an appropriately Marissa thing to do," Barton says. "She's just pissed off at life." Best pal Summer chooses a healthier alternative — therapy — in her quest to get over Seth. But Bilson, who quietly dates Brody off screen, says viewers shouldn't rule out a romantic reunion, calling them "the Ross and Rachel [of the show]."
Adding sparks to this already charged atmosphere are four hot young things who will wreak havoc with the teens' love lives. The new characters were necessary, Schwartz says, because "we didn't want to use the WB model of 'We'll just hook up Ryan with Summer, and Marissa with Seth.' That didn't feel fun."
The O.C. does not live by teen angst alone, of course, so the grown-ups will have their share of trouble. Seth's and Ryan's absences have put a strain on the Cohens' marriage. Kirsten copes by remodeling the crib, while Sandy returns to defending the downtrodden. And then there's that singing scene, a plot twist Gallagher welcomed. "They came up with a context in which it would be credible, not appalling and gross," says the actor, a Broadway-musical veteran (he starred in the 1992 smash Guys and Dolls). "Of course, I could still manage to be appalling and gross, but that's why God invented editors." Julie's new wealthy hubby, Caleb (Alan Dale), lands in jail, while ex-hubby Jimmy (Tate Donovan) is living on a boat, dating Hailey (Amanda Righetti). Expect Righetti — now in residence on Fox's North Shore — to make a quick exit, with Donovan eventually following suit.
For more on The O.C., pick up a copy of this week's magazine.
posted by Jen @ 4:01 PM |
'The OC' Lovers Engaged?The OC stars and onscreen lovers Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson have secretly gotengaged in real life. Brody and Bilson play teenagers Seth Cohen and SummerRoberts respectively in the hit American TV show, which follows the tangled lovelives of rich youngsters living in Orange County, California. The onscreencouple have tried to hide their offscreen romance for as long as possible, butnow their engagement is official they are looking for a house together in LosAngeles. A source at US television network Fox says, "They are both so much inlove and want to settle down together. Adam went down on bended knee in a verytraditional way and they plan to get married in the new year. It's the talk ofthe set, but they have been trying to keep it quiet. "http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/#1 --- Mischa is rumored to be playing Lois Lane in the new Bryan Singeradaptation of Superman, starring Brandon Routh. I don't know if you posted that already.
