Two TV shows

[mothwing]

Since most of our TV staples are currently on their summer break, Crocky and I have been checking out some new TV shows and like a few of the new ones. 

• White Collar: two WASPs, one FBI agent and a con-artist he arrested, strike an unlikely deal and fight crime. I don't really understand why this entertains me so much, especially given the paucity and relative two-dimensionality of the few female characters, but it is still entertaining to watch the main characters, in a The Pretender kind of way. The formula gets repetitive, though, but I am charmed by the fact that the main pairing of the show's fandom seems to be an OT3: con-artist/cop's wife/cop. 

• Pretty Little Liars - Desperate Housewives meets I Know What You Did Last Summer, sort of - four sixteen-year-old High School girls receive (text-) messages from someone impersonating their murdered friend Alison. The impersonator tries to expose the various secrets the four are entangled in and takes revenge on them.  I am trying really, really hard to get into this, but fail because if this is what today's fifteen-year-olds think of themselves, it's hilarious.
  So grown UP! And though I suspect that they do have a tongue-in-cheek My So-Called Life-take sometimes, this is not always that obvious. Especially the romantic storyline between one of their number and her teachers creeps me the hell out. I can see it work as a teenager fantasy, but I don't believe anyone would show this as a good thing on a show aimed at this demography. And those kids are so serious and GROWN-UP! Definitely old enough to have statutory rape-y relationships with their High School English teachers! Because they're TOTALLY WISE beyond their years! And if said High School teacher starts catching on and notices this might be dangerous for his job and leaves town, they are sad for days. DAYS, man! Also, the main characters are responsible for a fire that blinded another character, but we don't have to feel sorry for her, apparently, because she's creepy. Yeah. Also, they all look the same, and though one of them isn't white, no-one seems to be aware of that fact, which I found sad. I'm also shocked that Holly Mary Combs (37) has reached mother-character age already, especially seeing as her "daughter" Lucy Hale is 22.