At this point I think it's pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that The OC is the most important development in popular culture since at least Hamlet. Every week I tune in to watch attractive 20somethings pretend to be attractive teenagers and namedrop indie bands. I feel pretty confident that several members of the Pitchfork staff will be driven murderously insane by this before the end of the first season.

But what really interests me is the bizarre parallel universe the show's creators have set up. Every week the parents trade witty quips with their kids, then everybody goes to the same fancy dress ball. They're now starting to introduce some romances spanning this bizarrely functional intergenerational social scene. Most notably, the mom of ol' bug-eyes has started sleeping with some guy who's even more angular than the male lead, and therefore evil. In a post-"The Graduate" world -- which various quiz shows assure me we're in -- this isn't so shocking. But they've also started foreshadowing romance between an older guy and a vastly-though-probably-not-criminally younger female character.

Don't you see what's happening? It's all an ingenious plan. Some fat, bald TV producers were sitting around a table -- probably around the time "Baby One More Time" came out -- lamenting how little attention Catholic schoolgirls pay them nowadays. "Hey! I know!" one said. "Let's invent a TV show and use it to rewrite sexual norms! That should get us some hot young tail!"

Just you wait. By the end of season 2 they'll have made the ancient Greeks look like these people.