Just a quick note before I go to sleep...

I LOVE the new "lights off" feature for tv.com - It's brilliant, interactive, and shows respect for the desires of the community. I'm impressed. Thanks developers.

Quick Survey:

For my next blog would my readers prefer (not that are that many of you, I fear)

a) an indepth analysis of this season of Gossip Girl (the next installment in my "Top Ten Shows I'm Watching" series)

or

b) another "Top Ten Life Lessons" list, this time based on Lifetime movies?

Let me know in the comments!

Top Twelve Life Lessons I've Learned From Watching Scary Movies:

• Falling out the window of a two story house will most likely not kill you because there will always be a conveniently placed tarp to break your fall.
• Fences are extremely easy to tear apart, even when you're a petite female with limited upper body strength.
• The average teenager knows exactly how to dial 911 online. Also, how to clone a cell phone.
• When a psycho killer is on the loose it's a good idea to stroll down a darkened, deserted street with your unarmed lady friend, instead of driving in your police cruiser.
• When a serial killer is running rampant and waging attacks on teens at school, most parents will allow their teenagers to go to an un-chaperoned party.
• Even if you have a hundred people at a party, most likely no one will notice the dead body hanging from the garage door, even though that's where the beer is.
• Hitting a tree head-on will not kill you, even if you aren't wearing a seatbelt.
• The average man can easily lift a dead man twice his size and place him on the roof of a van with no ladder in sight and without attracting anyone's notice.
• Even if you just stepped in it, fresh blood will never stain your Christian Louboutin high heels.
• It's incredibly easy to drive an umbrella through someone's heart, even with no momentum.
• Black people don't exist. And if they dare to appear they get killed off almost immediately.

And the number one life lesson I've learned from Kevin Williamson…

• If you are blonde and sexy you will die. If you are a brunette, you are virginal and will survive.

I've decided to get back to enjoying what this site is all about. Drama the old-fashioned way. How, you ask?

Primetime, naturally!

When I was a kid, my BFF and I loved to make lists, Letterman styIe, while we whiled away the snore-fest currently known as A.P. History. In a moment of nostalgia, which came about mostly by hanging out in her high school bedroom, we decided to do it again but with (a LOT) of commentary. So without further ado, I present...

The Top Ten Shows I've Been Watching This Season
Warning: Spoilers included if you haven't seen recently aired episodes

Part One

By Adelette and BebeGirl, commentary by Adelette

90210: The New CIass
Okay so the show isn't actually called The New CIass but it might as well be. Anyone over 20 (am I showing my age here?) should remember the original version of Saved by the Bell in all it's badly acted and terribly written glory. But most of us loved it anyway. How could you not love Screech with his terrible hair, Zach with his rakish grin, or Jesse with her idealistic feminism? The show was a hit despite all odds and we gobbled it up. And so producers, being the money hungry sharks that they are, saw dollar signs. So when the kids aged out, they made a new version... with less pretty, less funny actors that couldn't overcome the simple fact that they just weren't the originals.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what is happening with 90210 2.0. The cast, while attractive enough (or most of them anyway), just doesn't have the chemistry that cIassic 90210 did. And it certainly doesn't have the talent. Some might say it's unfair to compare the two, but when you give a new show the same name as it's superior original, comparisons are damn near impossible to avoid.

The first problem this show has is its lead. Shenae Grimes, who stars as Annie, is almost unbearable to watch. Besides the fact that she desperately needs acting lessons, and that her voice sounds like it belongs to a whiny six-year-old, she's terrible to look at. Someone needs to tell her that her anorexia is showing. Seriously. The signs that this girl is sick are obvious. Forget the sunken cheeks, the under eye shadows, and the knifelike collarbone. The best way to tell if a girl isn't eating is to check out her hair and nails. Shiny, thick hair indicates a healthy immune system. Limp, dull hair and cracked, yellowed nails indicate a vitamin deficiency. And no doubt: Her hair has lost its luster. And no amount of product can hide that for long. The producers of this show need to sit her down, stat, and get the girl some help. Forget the questionable ethics of turning an anorexic teen into a national role model. Let's get real: Anorexia is deadly. Do they want their star pushing up daisies? It's a little hard to continue a show when your main star kicks it. Just ask John Ritter's co-stars from the now defunct 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. Even bringing in David Spade couldn't save that show from extinction once their lead was dead. They should especially consider 90210's target audience: teenagers like to think that they are invincible. If one of their own dies, they might not be too likely to watch that show anymore. After all, television is supposed to provide an escape from reality, not slap you in the face with it.

90210's second problem is that they have fallen into every cliché teen storyline one can imagine. Addiction. Pregnancy. Divorce. And the one storyline that actually interested me... the one that actually had potential was decimated in one scene. I'm talking about the story surrounding Ethan, the Car Accident, and the Teenage Victim. They set up a nice arc where Ethan feels guilty for harming Rhonda and is surprised by her blunt and not-so-positive opinion of him. When he asks her where she goes to school she gives him the smack-down. Ethan looks about as tall as my big toe as she reminds him that he's in one of her cIasses, but because she isn't a popular fashionista, or a homecoming queen he didn't even notice her existence. (Um, excuse me but isn't his girlfriend a theatre geek, Navid a journalist, and Silver, an anti-prom queen?) Regardless, Rhonda opens Ethan up to a whole new way of looking at life and he decides to unselfishly help her with her recovery. Their friendship could have led to lots of new characters. It could have grown organically into all sorts of new storylines. It was a brave choice... much stronger than sticking like glue to what's already a proven formula.

But of course the writers decided that if you aren't a popular beauty queen in Beverly Hills who already hangs out with the rich and privileged, then of course you must have an evil agenda designed to force your way into their circle. Because of course, EVERYONE wants to hang out with the Naomi Clark's of this world. In the show ruining moment, Rhonda jumps out of bed and grabs the remote behind the back of an oblivious Ethan, who believes Rhonda is weak, vulnerable, and shaky-footed. He practically lifts her into bed but the moment his back is turned she's practically turning cartwheels. Hey, maybe she can be a cheerleader, miraculously turn popular, and 90210 can add another vapid, blonde (like there aren't enough?) to the cast, who can say things like "Wow, Ethan, you are SO hot!" and spell "Go Ethan!" with her arms. Or maybe they can just rip off Fatal Attraction and One Tree Hill and have her microwave a bunny. Because that's exactly where this predictable, already been done a thousand times, storyline is going.

Then there are the characters. (Or should I say lack thereof?) Annie's personality is dull, bland, and uninspired. Dixon, though sweet, is your ordinary everyman, Naomi flirts with having layers but ultimately doesn't, and Adrianna, perhaps has TOO many layers. Seriously... her storyline is one after school special after another. Next they'll have a "touching" storyline where a sterile Brenda adopts Adrianna's baby in an open adoption. The parents don't seem to have any personality either. Only Tabitha and Silver show any real promise and the former has already been cut from regular to recurring.

Finally, the show relied far too heavily on the return of Kelly and Brenda, and the ensuing media circus, to garner ratings. Instead of publicity ploys and playing on viewer nostalgia, they needed to concentrate on a strong script backed by a stellar cast. While the media circus definitely brought in viewers, it certainly didn't keep them.

Can this show be saved? It's hard to guess. It could very well be too late. Hiring Buffy and Gilmore Girls vet Rebecca Rand Kirshner to helm the show is a step in the right direction. They also need to hire writers who understand what their genre is, who their audience is and, and how to play to them. While Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs might be good at writing for men, they certainly don't understand the female young adult. That scene in the first episode involving oral sex and played for laughs did nothing to engage the audience they're looking to captivate. In fact, for some it turned them right off. Not to mention the fact that it alienated viewers from a character they clearly wanted us to embrace. Word to the wise: Girls don't like players unless they're of the Dylan McKay bad-boy kind and Ethan Ward will never be a Dylan McKay. Ever.

Speaking of which, Dylan McKay could be just the thing to bring this show back from the point of ratings extinction. Unfortunately, Luke Perry refuses to reprise his role, thus thwarting any hope of an onscreen Brenda/Dylan/Kelly reunion triangle. Personally, I don't understand the reluctance unless it's because he's embarrassed to be on such an awful show... in that case, here's hoping Kirshner can turn this show around into the kind of ratings cow that the original was. Maybe then we'll get another peak at those famous sideburns.

Well that's all for now. We'll be back soon with the second installment in this series, chronicling the adventures of Blair, Chuck, Lil J, and the rest of the Upper East Side Gang when we review this season of Gossip Girl and all the dirt that goes along with it...

Until then, friends!

I noticed something slightly unsettling tonight. Does anyone else notice the disturbing resemblance between tv.com and mtv.com?

Is MTV under a CBS umbrella? Because the front pages are awfully similar. I am hoping this is just a case of developers copying each other or perhaps a layout trend because as much as I like certain elements of mtv, most of it turns me off. I truly hope that tv.com is not angling for the MTV demographic because that would be a giant mistake and a huge slap in the face to all of the adult users of this site who have freely given their time and devotion to enriching the database. Aiming their content to the tween demographic would systematically alienate each and every one of the adult users and editors here. Is that what is happening?

Perhaps I'm being a bit hasty here but I truly worry that one day I'll get online and find that the database here will have disappeared in lieu of an overrun of pictures of Bromance and Paris Hilton: My New BFF. I truly couldn't take that.

I had a three hour conversation today with a complete stranger about the theories of quantum physics. It sounds like a complete snore fest but it was one of the most enlightening, mind blowing conversations I've ever had. And the best part of this story is how it happened.

My computer malfunctioned today, so I called the Geek Squad for help. The tech decided to help me via remote assistance. Apparently, my problem isn't so easy to fix because it took a while. In the interim, we talked. And talked. And talked some more. Before I knew it three hours had gone by and I had never enjoyed a conversation more. He was smart and interesting and completely off the beaten path. It was amazing.

After it was over, I wondered why I never have conversations like these in the real world with the men I date. And then it occured to me that the men I date generally aren't interested in me - they are usually more interested in my body. I've never really met someone that talked to me because of what was going on in my mind. He said that I had a great mind and that I was more open to learning physics that I realized. I think that was probably one of the greatest compliments I've ever gotten. (Surely better than "Damn girl, you look hot tonight.") The best part is that I know he meant it - because if it was a line, what was he going to get out of it? The guy lives in another state, and has no idea what I look like. It was the first truly genuine thing any guy has said to me in as long as I can remember. And it felt great.

The thing is, I am far from stupid. I scored higher on the SAT's than 85 percent of my class. My college grades were high enough to get me in to the National Honor Society. I've written two books, published several freelance articles, and became the youngest staff member at my job ever to earn the promotion to reporter. And yet, none of the guys I've ever dated have ever told me I was smart, or validated my accomplishments. I've always felt like I didn't deserve better than that. I always felt like it was my job to downplay my successes while celebrating theirs. How sexist is that? And I knew it, but I did it anyway, out of some perverse sense of self-preservation and a need to be liked. I didn't want to rock the boat.

But a chance encounter with a complete stranger might have changed all that for me. I had an epiphany tonight about what matters in my life and about what's truly important to me. My life might be no more than a blip on the grand radar, but it's important to me, and I am important to those who love me. I don't want to spend the next decade of my life worrying about what someone else thinks of me or fearing that I might intimidate the guys in the office if I show them up. I'm done worrying.

It's my turn to shine.