So I'm battling away with SARS, and its pouring outside, so I'm way too lazy to go to the video store to rent something....So what is a cableless person supposed to watch during dinner....It was either "Antiques Road Show in England", or "The O.C.".....well, the road show was not looking promising....and I've never watched O.C., so to Orange County I went....And even if I can't call myself a fan of the show, I was impressed by some of its features...(more than just the feaures on the ladies)....for one there was open lesbian action on the show...something shows from 80's and 90's would never touch...so I give it some progressive cred...next, background music included The Thrills, The Faint, Elliot Smith, to name the ones I instantly recognized, plus one of the characters has a Death Cab poster in his room...so the show is actually using youth culture and not just forcing lame ass company bands on the soundtrack, some indie cred.....Lastly, during one scene, two of the guys are working on a comic book idea of theirs....one of their girlfriends walks in and says, "Who do you think you guys are, Kavalier and Gay?"....At this point I'm thinking, who's that joke for...While not the most obscure reference, how many mainstream shows use recent Pulitzer Prize winning fiction as the basis for jokes, literati cred.....I don't know if I'll be watching again, unless the Bird Flu keeps hacking at me, but the show is a million times better than my high school favorite 90210....