In Which In The City There's A Thousand Faces All Shining Bright

I'm Just So Tired Of All These Bride Wars

by Molly Lambert

Gossip Girl has been just okay for the past few weeks. Consequentially I ended up neck deep in MTV's The Hills goes to New York spinoff The City. Did they give Whitney Port a voice coach? She still sounds weird and may or may not be a cylon.

Olivia Palermo's stacked heels might weigh more than she does

The only decently entertaining character is the skinny bitch socialite (Olivia Palermo) when she's not pretending to be nice. They're setting her up to be the Heidi, but she's already worse than Heidi. Heidi needed Spencer to be her Lady Macbeth.

Spencer Pratt is currently the most evil character in all of televisual fiction. The white blond Iago from Malibu easily smashes all competition (including the Real Housewives). Chuck Bass, Gossip Girl's opium den lurking bad boy is studded with numerous redemptive qualities (as is the sometimes annoying way of Josh Schwartz).

devil in a fleshtone fleshtone fleshtone devil in a fleshtone beard

Spencer Pratt, on the other hand, is a disgusting fleshtone bearded embodiment of pure evil. He's like an allegorical character from a Hawthorne story, tempting good Puritans into a dark forest of staged photo ops and Taco Bell promotions.

I'm into the whole clash between the socs and the hipsters on The City. It reminds me of college. Both are just a bunch of rich kids fighting over whether it's more alt/authentic to "slum it" or "embrace being wealthy." I kind of side with the socs even though all of these people are assholes and I actually hate them.

Whitney girl, I will throw all of my shrimps on your barbie

My roommate Jess said, about the language barrier in Whitney's relationship with (Australian Justin Bobby) Jay: "Are they having sex or what? All they've ever said is that they've been hanging out for a while. 'Yes we like to hang out. we've been hanging out for some weeks now.'" I think that fairly astutely sums up the major problems of 21st century dating.

Daddy's Girls, the Run's House spinoff about Vanessa and Angela Simmons is much better than The City (which it follows). As befits MTV's reality strategy, it's basically a retrofitted Sex & The City in Los Angeles with black teen girls. So, it's like a younger reality version of Girlfriends.

I always liked Girlfriends. I haven't seen it lately in syndication. Like a lot of UPN shows, Girlfriends got unfairly shafted by the network. They were denied the closure of a series finale while the net continued to court the WB's young white audience (the one that watched Dawson's Creek and watches the new 90210).

we r just some kute mileys trying to make it in the big apple!!!

Unlike the ridiculously vacuous company Whitney keeps on The City, the Simmons girls and their friends are delightful. They're funny, bubbly, and actually nice to each other. They don't narrate the events that are happening to them like LC and her idiot friends do (i.e. "I'm cold." "I'm drinking Smart Water." "I feel sad.")

speaking of adorable famous black sister pairs

While they are still styled within an inch of their life and obviously "on" for the cameras, Vanessa and Angela just seem intrinsically charismatic in a way that The Hills girls never ever do.They appear to live in Los Feliz but shoot the show on a soundstage that is just a repainted version of LC's old apartment from The Hills. Way to conserve in a shaky economy whilst pushing the constraints of reality, MTV!

tru luv New York style for Whitney and Jay in "The City"

Anyway speaking of alternate realities, the rumor is that the new Gossip Girl spinoff will actually be about Lily Van Der Woodsen growing up in LA as a rich valley girl in the 80s. Take it with a grain of salt, but that's kind of brilliant. Cecily von Ziegesar's other (ghostwritten) series The It Girl is about Jenny Humphrey in LA, but making it be a period prequel is genius.

tru luv San Fernando Valley style for young Nic Cage in "Valley Girl"

The other thing this brings to mind is the soap-within-a-soap on The OC called The Valley. If Lily were really a valley girl, and the show was Fast Times At Dawson's Creek. Well, I know I'd watch. [Full disclosure: I grew up in the San Fernando Valley].

My brother pointed me towards this weird profile of fellow child of the valley Paul Thomas Anderson from Esquire's "75 Most Influential People Of The 21st Century." You should read it too.

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PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING:

Magic Molly Young Reviews The Gossip Girl Book Series

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Bridget Moloney Debates New York And Los Angeles