The TV Zone

How's that for an endorsement? Really: Not a disaster. And it wasn't. Of course, there will be some critics out there, some viewers, too, who'll grouse that "it's not as good as the original," or "it's lame," or "it's cliched," or whatever. We have it in our genes: We are simply predisposed to hate that which is not what we want it to be or thought it would be or long ago decided what it should be. Me? I thought it would be utterly silly tripe, and when it displayed just the slightest heartbeat, the slightest sense of intelligence, and shrewdness, I figured: Hey, this'll actually work, and it did. Here's my review, if you care to read, and in the cold cruel light of morning, I wouldn't change it. I'm not entirely sure the adult storylines work - teens who watch will just be turned off, or see the Harry/Debbie Wilson story as a drag - little or big roadblocks en route to the stories they do care about. (Josh Schwartz somehow managed to fold the Sandy/Kirsten Cohen storylines into "The O.C." without too much trouble, but the Wilsons still don't feel quite right here; I'm not entirely sure why.)

In any event ... CW needed to do one thing last night. It needed to mount a show without destroying it in the process. I did just that. Will this thing last ten years? The larger question: Will the CW?