orange county-related stories
Posted Aug 11th 2009 10:29AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Watercooler Talk

A week ago on the hit Bravo reality "thang"
Real Housewives of Atlanta, if you tuned in you got to see the ladies who lunch take it outside for a beat down, but you also saw one of the fakiest, mushiest love scenes yet on the
Real Housewives' franchise. Former, pro football player Ed Hartwell cooked a special dinner, spread rose petals to spell "I love you," played massage therapist, and finally took a bubble bath with his wife while murmuring the words, "Let's go make some babies."
The ick factor was set on 11 on the
Spinal Tap scale. That was then.
Ed and Lisa Hartwell have been foreclosed upon and now that bathtub for two is the bank's property.
Continue reading Recession and the Real Housewives of Atlanta
Posted Jul 9th 2008 8:22PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Industry, Celebrities, Pushing Daisies, Reality-Free

ABC's hit show
Pushing Daisies will host a
pie-eating contest at the Orange County Fair. The contest will run for thirteen straight evenings. Each night, ten contestants will don a "Pie Hole" themed bib and compete for a special prize. No word on what the prize is or better yet, what kind of pie they'll have to eat. Also, on the first night of the contest, cast members Field Cate (Young Ned) and Sammi Hanratty (Young Chuck) will be on hand to sign autographs.
This is a cute marketing idea. A good ole fashioned food-eating contest is always a hit. However, I wish they would have gotten some bigger cast members to make an appearance. The kids are cute, but even I'd take a trip to Orange County to watch people stuff themselves for
Lee Pace (*swoon*).
If you live in Orange County or are planning to visit in the near future, the dates and specific locations for the contest are after the jump.
Continue reading Pushing Daisies to host pie-eating contest
Posted Jun 26th 2008 3:24PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, Pickups and Renewals

Has Bravo gone to the well once too much? It sure seems that way. Hot on the success of
The Real Housewives of New York City, which was inspired by
The Real Housewives of Orange County,
Bravo is now rolling out The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Now, listen, I've watched the first two series; I admit that they are addictive. And they're convenient because Bravo re-airs them again and again, but come on! This is like Coffee-Mate coming up with all these flavored creamers. Do we really need so many creamers?
Continue reading Bravo conjures up more Housewives, this time from Atlanta
Posted Mar 7th 2007 7:34PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Celebrities, MTV

Jason Wahler will spend the next two months in jail. No, you can't lock him up for simply being an idiot. He actually had to do something, like punch a city employee and a tow truck driver. Last year, the 20-year old co-star of
The Hills and
Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County blew his top when a tow truck was blocking the road as the driver tried to move an illegally parked car. Wahler reportedly got out of his vehicle and yelled racial slurs at the city worker and tow truck driver (both of them black) and then actually punched them both before being subdued. Blood-alcohol tests show Wahler's level was .22.
On top of his two months in jail, pretty boy will also have to attend a one-day program at the Museum of Intolerance. The judge was probably pretty strict with the guy because he was recently arrested in North Carolina for underage drinking and resisting arrest.
Sounds like a great role model for the impressionable MTV crowd.
Posted Feb 16th 2007 10:47AM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, HBO, OpEd, The O.C.
(S04E15) It's starting to feel very final isn't it? I'm really impressed with the way the series is wrapping itself up. Some of the cheese factor still exists (Seth getting help from the homeless folks again), but for the most part the characters and their paths are falling into place.
I think this may have been the first episode of The OC that took place entirely at night. As a result, the whole episode was lit in shades of dark and light blues. It reminded me a lot of a season one episode of CSI: NY.
Overall though, what the episode really emphasized for me is how far Ryan has come. This is probably the biggest tragedy that could have possibly occurred in Newport Beach and despite that, the group remained intact with Ryan right in the middle of it. Not bad for someone who came into their lives as an outsider.
Continue reading The OC: The Night Moves
Posted Nov 8th 2006 7:32PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Cable, Industry, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals
Project Runway aside, Bravo is obsessed with the SoCal good life. The network that brings you
Work Out,
The Real Housewives of Orange County and
Million Dollar Listing doesn't think you're getting quite enough of a glimpse into what Botox-ed blondes and metrosexual old-timers are doing with their free time so
they've teamed up with Snackaholic Productions to bring you
Welcome to the Parker, a one-hour reality show focused on the staff and guests of the posh
Parker Palm Springs hotel.
Shooting on the series begins this month. The show will premiere next year. I'm glad to see that Bravo has cornered the market on wish-fulfillment reality programming, but does America really give a crap about a hotel that has a "manifesto" which reads, "We believe in the American country club experience: mixed doubles, a long steam, and a stiff cocktail?" Did they hire the editors of
Esquire to come up with that? Don't get me wrong. I love
Esquire, and heck, the hotel looks like a marvel of mid-50s, modernist design. I'm just not sure that I want to see any country club on TV that doesn't have Bill Murray hunting for gophers on its greens.
Posted Oct 26th 2006 3:06PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, MTV

It took a while, but MTV is finally releasing the soundtrack to
Laguna Beach. It's surprising that this didn't happen sooner since music played such an important role in the reality series. The soundtrack has 14 songs and dialogue from the show sprinkled betweeen random tracks.
Laguna Beach: Summer Can't Last Forever comes out November 7th, or you can pay $9.99 to download it at
URGE right now. The tracks are listed after the jump:
[Via
TV Tattle]Continue reading MTV to release soundtrack to Laguna Beach
Posted Jul 28th 2006 8:43AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: FOX, The O.C., Games

Wear Chanel. Go to Harbor. Drive a Land Cruiser. Make an ass of yourself at a charity function. That's what they do in
The O.C. and soon you can do it too, in a video game. Gameloft, the makers of Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest, is currently laboring over a game based on the FOX teen soap. It's a Sims-style game where you can wander around real
O.C. locations and work on your tan or your muscles. Looks are apparently very important in the storyline of the game. You can choose to be any of the lead characters, Ryan, Marissa, Summer or Seth, or you can create your own character to shake things up in their McMansions.
What I want to know is: Can you punch somebody or get high? It just wouldn't be
The O.C. without a fight or someone overdosing on drugs.
Posted May 19th 2006 1:16AM by Lacy Hall
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, OpEd, The O.C.
(S03E25) The trailers promised us that someone MAY not survive the season finale and they were right. Someone MAY not have survived. But the MAY and the plot history of
The O.C. is what puts it all in question. There was most definitely a jilted ex-lover. And definitely a serious car wreck. Definitely an explosion. And most definitely it looked like a main character said their final, unrecognizable words before they stopped breathing. But the MAY is still there. Why?
Continue reading The O.C.: The Graduates (finale)
Posted May 5th 2006 3:48PM by Lacy Hall
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, OpEd, The O.C., Threshold
(S03E24) Prom is over and enter the aftermath. But surprise, surprise...Volchok? Not dead. Thank God. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care if the guy lives or dies, but it would have just been bizarro times infinity if another one of Marissa's love interests ended up in the morgue. She does seem to like them on the brink of death.
But nope, Ryan rushes (not really, more like leisurely drives) Volchok to the hospital during a trippy, light-filled montage, and Volchok awakes without even seeing a doctor. Volchok (ever the good guy) doesn't sell Ryan out and claims he was jumped by a group of thugs. But it turns out that Volchok is not "ever the good guy."
Continue reading The O.C.: The Man of the Year
Posted Apr 21st 2006 6:02PM by Lacy Hall
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, OpEd, American Idol, The O.C.
(S03E22) This was one of those
weird episodes where suspension of disbelief is absolutely necessary. Somehow (only with the magic of television),
Berkeley and Brown are both having their incoming freshman weekends the
same weekend. Weird. Especially
weird that they would have an incoming freshman weekend months and months and months before the school
semester even starts. But whatever. It's
The O.C. and I forgive.
Continue reading The O.C.: The College Try
Posted Apr 14th 2006 12:36PM by Lacy Hall
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, OpEd, The O.C.
(S03E21) So much happened on last night's episode, I just don't know where to start. I'll just jump
to the part that shocked me most -- the attempted rape of that poor girl at Volchok's party. Marissa sees one of
Volchok's slimy friends slip a questionable liquid into the beer of an already wasted girl. Him and some of his buddies
then take the passed-out girl outside to a van to tag team her. For a few minutes, I actually didn't think that Marissa
was going to do anything other than remain her passive aggressive self. Luckily(!), Marissa follows them outside and
claims that she needed to get into the van because she left her sweatshirt in there (passive aggressive!). If I saw
some guys doing that to a girl at a party, it'd be hard to tell me apart from the Incredible Hulk because I'd rip the
doors off that van. In fact, it wouldn't even get that far because I would have ninja-kicked that beer out of the
dude's hand before he could even think about giving it to her. Marissa didn't do any of those things, but she did
(thankfully) stop the rape, so I won't criticize.
Continue reading The O.C.: The Dawn Patrol
Posted Apr 7th 2006 3:02PM by Lacy Hall
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, OpEd, The O.C.
(S03E20) It's college acceptance (or rejection) day in Orange County. I just love how via the magic
of television everybody finds out on the exact same day if they got into college or not. I also love that none of the
characters oo the show applied to any safety schools. You would think that a guidance counselor would advise them to
apply to at least two schools, but whatever, everybody got into the school of their dreams...minus poor Seth.
Continue reading The O.C.: The Day After Tomorrow
Posted Apr 6th 2006 10:37AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, The O.C., Celebrities

Another spring, another prom on
The
O.C., but this year there's going to be a special guest.
American Idol castoff, and real Orange County,
Calif. resident, Lisa Tucker begins work on the set of
The O.C. next week.
So far there are no
details on her role, but you can bet it'll be relatively small. Like a cameo. Maybe she'll be the prom queen. Or, maybe
she'll sing. Yeah, I bet she sings. The episode is called "The Party Favor" and there isn't an air date set
for it quite yet.
Posted Mar 31st 2006 2:06PM by Lacy Hall
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, FOX, OpEd, The O.C.
For the record, I don't think Volchok is that gross. In fact, he's a pretty good looking guy. I don't think he
deserves the "ew" that Summer gives him. (But she does pass out the ew's pretty easily.) I'm not so crazy
about his drug problem, but I can understand why Marissa finds him attractive. He's got that motorcycle and no
discernible responsibilities. Plus, he looks like he could be good in bed. He seems like he'd be a very attentive
lover. And, it appears that is what poor Marissa is looking for....attention.
Continue reading The O.C.: The Secrets and Lies
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