One Tree Hill

And the goodness continues

-Full crowd for an NBDL game which is interesting since they usually attract 2000 on a good night, but hey it is Charleston maybe there really is nothing else going on.
-The point guard playing in front of Nathan is portrayed as the most self absorbed ego driven athelete this side of Barry Bonds (33 points and 1 assist that only came from a airball that was laid back in). When he refuses to pass on the last play Nathan goes in and of course feeds the winning basket.
-The show's treatment of hollywood is almost as good as their treatment of sports. Lucas and Julian keep trying to find a director to adapt his book (including a coke snorting James Van Der Beek) and this episode finds them in a junkyard with a stereotypical indie director (golf hat, elvis costello glasses) who gives them his vision of turning the book into a gang war set in a white trash neighborhood. Apparently they'd already turned down five others for not being quite right (including a guy who made an incest movie with sock puppets - which I need to see). When the studio head gives them a 24 hour ultimatum to pick one, Van Der Beek comes back to try and convince them to give him the job and is portrayed as how somebody from nebraska views hollywood directors (sample dialogue: "You guys are thinking about Fast Food, Beer, and getting laid', 'When we're done we'll all get more ass than a toilet seat at yankee stadium'). Van Der Beek then goes and steals Lucas' speech about the film and uses it to get the job from the money guys. I hope this means we'll be seeing a healthy dose of Rules of Attraction Van Der Beek in future episodes.
-The last couple of episodes have brought back one of my favorite running features of the show - opportunistic merchandising. Last season the show runners found some myspace singer named Kate Vogle, made her a character on the show and now have her premier songs and tour dates as the character. Plus since I've been watching the show online the CW helpfully puts a link to purchase the album underneath the player. This storyline is by far the most overt example of blatant commercialization on the show but my favorite is still the episode that used the video game 'Rock Band' to try and bring Nathan and Halie back together (you think I'm kidding). Its rare to find a show that so fully embraces the merchandising properties available to it. This thing must be a cash cow.