Talk About The Passion

The VH1 Classic Alternative is the best kind of time machine.

In these days of Pitchfork and The Fader and Soulseek and MP3 blogs, it's easy to forget how hard it once was to find the underground, much less infiltrate and assimilate. Tapes were passed, articles were photocopied, and if you were lucky enough to have cable TV and a VCR, 120 Minutes was rabidly consumed, recorded and passed down the lane. This was another time altogether, but if you set your dial to VH1 Classic three times a week to catch The VH1 Classic Alternative, it's easy to feel like the underground isn't so goddamned overcrowded, and that "alternative" actually once meant something.

Hosted by VH1 talking head Eddie Trunk — who almost always looks like he's been horribly punked by the makeup artist — Alternative is the kind of public service at which the VH1 and MTV spinoff channels excel. On all these channels — VH1 Soul, MTV Jams, etc. — niche audiences are soothed with that rarest of things: the music video. Trunk is certainly no Dave Kendall — hell, he's not even Matt Pinfield — but the playlists have a positively transporting effect that few shows on these subchannels have. This is for a good reason: While heavy metal would have thrived without Headbanger's Ball (the same for hip-hop and Yo! MTV Raps), it's safe to say careers were made and lives saved by 120 Minutes. Present company included.

And while the name 120 Minutes is hardly mentioned, Classic Alternative mines those old playlists, nearly to a tee. That Petrol Emotion bumps into Cocteau Twins rubbing up against Yaz, and before you know it, here we are with The The and Edie Brickell promising us there will be a world where you won't get your ass kicked for listening to this music. That world is here now, but I'll be damned if there isn't still something edgy about seeing a Sisters Of Mercy video on TV. The only difference is now, there's the added value of kitsch. Former fag hags, new wavers, straight-edgers, goths, jangle-dorks and punks take note: This is the way we were, one alternative nation, indivisible (if only for a moment), with liberty and horrendous haircuts for all.

The VH1 Classic Alternative airs Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 11 p.m.

And Now, TV Party's Unfinished Thoughts on the Lesbian OC Plotline

Mischa Barton has now boldly gone, well, where most hot girls eventually go when they tire of the attentions of their slobbering male peer group. This development could alter the course of teenage male fantasy for an entire generation. Since I'm not part of that generation — and if this paper's demographic assessments are correct, neither are you, perv — I'd like to parse apart just what this development may mean for our younger brothers and sisters.

While it's TV fun of the grandest variety for you and I, this OC lesbian plotline business, I worry about what it's saying to the youngsters. Perhaps nothing they don't already know from the rest of the flying sexual debris they/we glean from hip-hop, television and what-have-you: That it's OK for girls to hook up, bad (or dangerous) for boys to do so, and sooner or later, most people bounce back to a solid hetero identity anyway. For a show that's displayed a kind of knowing grace (albeit wrapped in layers of delicious frivolity), this seems kind of irresponsible, and if you care about where and what and how kids look for sexual identity, also kind of insulting. The OC registers with so many people outside its intended audience of teens because it feels smart, and for them to play bonehead Girls-Gone-Wild lesbian chic is a betrayal, especially when you know, you know that once Mischa's lesbian sojourn is consummated, there will almost immediately be a reprisal filled with guilt, quashed self-discovery and, God help us, her even going back to that dolt Ryan with his straw hair and half-ass 12-step-ish moral superiority. In the end, this doesn't make The OC good television — it makes it boring.

The OC airs Thursdays, 8 p.m., Fox.

TV/Tivo Tips!
Feb. 17-March 2

Pet Star
Animal Planet, Thu., Feb. 17, 9 p.m.
Animal Planet really knows what side their bread is buttered on: This program features musical guinea pigs, cats that can skateboard, bunnies who like to follow trains. Are you going to eat the rest of that brownie?

My Super Sweet 16
MTV, Sun., Feb. 20, 3 p.m.
With My Super Sweet 16, the whole humiliation-and-vanity-of-teens trend is well under way. Witness spoiled brats kvetch and whine about their megaplanned Sweet 16 parties; laugh at them when they don't kiss their crush and no one comes. MTV's new motto: "Feel the hate, eat the young."

Noah's Ark: The True Story
TLC, Sun., Feb. 20, 10 p.m.

Uh, what? Stick around for the next installment in this series, Creationism: When Monkeys Fly Out Of My Ass!

Unscripted
HBO, Sun., Feb. 27, 10 p.m.
Remember all those rash judgements you made about the drama geeks in high school? You were totally right. Watch everyone you hated twist in the wind in an endless Los Angeles-career-dryhump loop. De-lovely.