Monday, September 08, 2008

PTC doesn't like 90210... what a surprise

Even if I didn't see a headline over at Starpulse proclaiming it, I would just know in my heart that the Parents Television Council would have their puritanically panties in a bunch over the new iteration of 90210.

Granted, I don't watch 90210, and I don't plan to at any time in the near or even far future, but from the time it was announced, I knew that the PTC would be really gunning for this show. The fact that the show opened with a parking lot blow job was just making their job easier, because no matter what, they would have hated the show.

Why? Well, since there is another scripted show on TV that deals with a bunch of wealthy kids with debauched sex lives that is setting a certain standard when it comes to certain kinds of storylines, it seemed inevitable that a show trying to cater to the same crowd (along with people who watched the original version who have likely migrated to shows like Desperate Housewives), so there was no way that any producer/writer in his or her right mind would go totally G-rated with the material for the first show.

I do remember that the first 7 episodes of The O.C. were rather risque themselves, showing a youth lifestyle that was seemingly over the top... and then the whole scene just really mellowed out, so there weren't really any more huge parties with seemingly gratuitous drug use and random sexual encounters, and I have a feeling that something like this may happen at West Beverly as well. The blow job was a shot across the bows of groups like PTC, because if they don't like the show, well, they are going to be vocal about it, and really, any show aimed at teens that the group doesn't like will probably end up doing good business. And think about how many people have been talking about that simulated sex act since it happened.

I mean, think about it this way... there was controversy from day one when the producers of the show wouldn't send out screeners of the pilot, but after that first episode aired, well, suddenly they are more than willing to have their show screened by a monitoring service. Part of me thinks they wanted to keep the BJ a secret to get more publicity after it aired.

Yes, I am a cynical bastard.

2 comments:

Arjan said...

smart move. But what happens if the group burns it to the ground (except more viewers)? Does it get an icon 16 or 18+? And all the fancy sex, drugs, violence icons?

MC said...

The PTC can be really pissed off by something, but if the producers are careful, they can get away with depicting almost anything without fear of a fine.