Sounds dreadful..I guess it'll be on C4 here in NZ very soon...

More Guillotines!

You heard it here first.

It's curious. Despite my loathing for vampire stuff, I have had to admit that Buffy the Vampire Slayer touches something essential and human. I even wept...yes, I did...when I saw some friends performing a "shadowcast" of the musical episode "Once More with Feeling."

It is possible for people to write about teenage life and still make it vital and involving. Just not on television, right now, in this era of megacorporations and writing by committee. It isn't about who sleeps with who or who betrays who, which seems to be what these teen drama shows are about.

Maybe it's just that the executives at Fox and CW think we're as vapid as they are.

"At this media-saturated juncture, turning off our TVs and walking out into the woods would feel tantamount to burying our heads in the sand. In the age of Twitter, Walden Pond is just as bad as the Hamptons, when viewed through the appropriately warped lens."

Really?! I can't say I live at "Walden Pond" but I normally avoid shows like this like the plague. What exactly am I missing that is so vital or important? You say this show elicits greed/envy and self-loathing ... WOW, how can I miss out on that? Wheres my remote? I *need* to watch this now ... not.

These are the kids I went to high school with. Lucky me, the token scholarship kid, who could make all the rich kids feel better about themselves by having someone to look down on. And now a major network expects me to be interested in their vapid lives? No thanks.

Bill Murray sums it up here much better than I ever could:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8YbjyBQzI

...and despite being middle-aged and unemployed, I still have the time to comment on things I haven't seen.

Please hire me!

I taught at one of those schools. Mine was a middle school in midtown, but the youngsters were phenomenally wealthy. In middle school, however, they did not know that they were wealthy.

What you have to remember is that the Mark Burnet script requires finding the most arrogant, the most mousy, the most clueless, the most insane, the most ____ possible and then editing to show each anecdote in its most garish form. If possible, the worst combination will shoved into a room and asked to mate or compete for a mate. The dictate is "good television," not truth.

For each creature you see on this show, remember that most of the NYC preps have a pretty severe religious or ethical commitment, and so a kid who comes out flashing money and using the parents' cash to extend nature's bounty of hormones is already defying the messages she or he is getting at school, in the social circle, and probably at home. In other words, these are the freaks and geeks of the preps, and they're chosen because they're the Puck of the NYC Prep Road Rules. It's more "good television," not truth.

As for why we watch, I wish it were because the television will cause the revolution.

In this hideous economic climate, I really don't want to watch a bunch of rich kids who happen to be flaming losers.

Not every rich kid sucks. But shows like this make it seem that way, and cause class warfare to flare up.

I think we're heading for some serious social clashes. If the economy keeps going downhill, these kids will get to enjoy a spike in crime in NYC.

drop all of these kids, all of the "housewives" and paris hilton right into the middle of Calcutta with no phones and no cash and no credit cards.

i would watch that.

The funny thing is that Salon has reached the point where it can't tell when it's joking and when it's not.

I'd totally watch that.

Or maybe the middle of the Serengeti. Or Antarctica.

Heather keeps saying "we", but I don't think her statements apply to me...or hardly anyone I know.

So why don't we knock off writing articles using hyperbolic "we" statements.

Write the pitch! I'd watch that.

Only promise no vapid "host," no interview video diaries, and no eat-this-gross-creature contests. Just let the cameras roll.

I haven't seen this show yet, but I've been hearing about it from PC's wounded girls. He'd been in my kitchen a few years back before he turned gay, then straight, then obnoxious blowhard. This is "reality tv". Maybe instead of guillotining the rich teens we could begin closing down the clubs that cater to these rich underage teens. Bijou for starters, Fra's club. These DWIGHT students (Dumb White Idiots Getting High T___...the acronym for kids who attend this school that their parents buy them into when there's no where else to go) might not be behaving this way if their behavior wasn't celebrated by the media. If the clubs weren't opening their doors and selling them bottles with a charge of $300 to $1000.

Knowing that PC is only 19 why are the clubs still opening their doors and serving him...live on TV no less? Maybe we should use this as a call to arms to disarm the industry of scannable fake ID's that cost between $150 to $300. How about following the cast of NYPrep and fining or closing down their haunts. I know they'll find some other place, but if the perpetrators become NYPerps maybe some kids can be saved.

Teenagers are all assholes. All of them. Put them in front of a camera and tell them they're God's gift to Earth and they're even bigger assholes. Thankfully America is now a country where assholish teenagerhood extends to nearly age 30.

They already made that show. It was the one that made Paris Hilton "famous" in the first place.

I liked the article, Heather, but I have have no interest in watching this show. One thing you didn't point out is that network execs ALWAYS try to over-saturate the market when they think they spot a "trend." When the original 90210 and Melrose Place was on the air, we got tons of clones of those shows. Because after all, if an idea works once, it'll work 5 million more times with diminishing returns right? (If that confuses you, don't worry. It's "Hollywood logic.") It's already happening. You mentioned televized brat factory The Hills, Heather, but it's equally crappy spin-off The City isn't really doing so hot in the ratings. (Of course that didn't stop MTV from renewing it for a second season. Remember "Hollywood logic.") And I hear that the new 90210 isn't getting as much viewership as the disproportionate media coverage suggest either.

Speaking of which, I suspect that's the REAL target audience of this show (and others like it): gossip conglomorate overexposure. A NY Prep "lifestyle" would match tabloid interests pretty well.