Californication, Season 1

The esteemed David of Hamburg once referred to this program as the "spiritual successor" to The OC. Poppycock , I say. Such an equation is a gross insult to a series aggressively literate and spiritually alive; for all its fucking and punching Californication is the far more sexually and socially responsible of the two.

The founding assumption of The OC is that Newport Beach is your wet dream and mine. Ryan takes to it like a lungfish to shallow water and, the fact that the Cohens return to Berkeley in the end notwithstanding, the glamorized society lifestyle is never presented as less than paramount. The bile rises in my throat even now.

Entourage and 30 Rock have also succeeded under the false pretense that we are all as much in love with the entertainment industry as it is with itself. As an unaspiring melodrama I can more easily forgive The OC, but people actually seem to think that Entourage and 30 Rock are clever. It is possible that Entourage has the worst writing in the history of HBO — the four hopeless principals are unable to sell a single line of dialogue — and all the tittering cameos and all the Piven in Port Chester University can't hide that.

Too much has been made of Tina Fey's modest writing talents, I suppose because the media likes her as a role model for girls. (Sarah Silverman has far deadlier comic instincts.) I think my ambivalence toward Fey is based on this: She seems preoccupied with the belief that she is too much of a dork to ever be one of the cool girls, and so timidly relies on one-note ham. To some that may be endearing but it isn't funny. And as for her costar Tracy Morgan...he has never once been even remotely funny. Not in stand-up, not on SNL, not ever. Unless you are amused by a capering pickaninny.

From afar Californication might seem no different in the glorification of all things E! But the true premise behind Hank Moody's escapades is just the opposite: Hank hates the shit out of Los Angeles and the ruin it has made of his life; he hates himself even more for indulging in its hollow pleasures and squandering his abilities. Please no more California songs.

After a while there was a faint smell of ocean. Not very much, but as if they had kept this much just to remind people this had once been a clean open beach where the waves came in and creamed and the wind blew and you could smell something besides hot fat and cold sweat.

— Raymond Chandler