I didn't know it was still on the air

     In lieu of a dining room table, I eat in front of the television, like most good Americans.   Tuesday night isn't my favorite night of TV, especially since Running Wilde is off the schedule and Parenthood is on at 10.  I need to be in bed by 10, or at least be thinking about bed, and not getting emotionally involved.  So that is why I was flipping around the channels at 8, trying to see if there was something I was missing.  There wasn't really.
     I saw that One Tree Hill popped up on my guide and I thought "oh, a rerun?  Do I get the crappy rerun channel?"  No, I don't.  This show is still on the air.  They're still making new ones!  Holy Crap!  I can't believe it.  I watched it for the same reason people watch car accidents and train wrecks.  It's impossible to look away from something so terrible. 
     I (shamefully) admit I watched this show when it first aired back in the 80s or whenever the hell it was. (In reality, it was 2003.  But it feels much longer.)  It was a distraction.  I was young and confused.  Anyway, after they all graduated from high school, the series did a time shift.  That was actually an interesting way to go, and I was intrigued enough to watch that season.  A grad school roommate and I used to sit on our couch watching it, providing the color commentary and writing fake letters to Mark Schwann.  We're pretty sure he phones it in.  There were some ridiculous plot points, such as trampoline basketball and killer nannies.  It was not good.  At the end of the season I think they were all killed and the town was plowed under, so I assumed the series was over.
     A new episode was quite the surprise.  It seems to be later that same year.  There are more people, but it's really hard to tell any of them apart.  Clearly, the casting director has a type.  Again, I haven't been watching, so I'm sure there were some finer points I missed, but I still ended up yelling these things at my television:

You've been through a lot EVERY YEAR.  You say that ALL THE TIME.  What the hell?

Did the writers even go to school to learn how to do this?  They just pull cliches out of a hat and call it a script, don't they?

You've said the name Victoria five times in the last 30 seconds.  You should know she's going to show up.  You're both stupid.  You're all stupid.

None of this is how things actually go.

[In response to Haley asking Erin why Erin doesn't get along with her parents]: That's a man, right?  She fights with her parents because they don't understand why she wants to be a girl.  No?  You're not going to address that?  It's because of her music?  She's a MAN.

 I had to share with the aforementioned roommate.  She received this text message:

Just watched an ep of OTH.  I've had bowel movements that had more subtext than the dialog on this show.

And I stand by that too.