2/2 - Instead of Daria

This week's crop of LWs lack the capacity to watch Daria and draw from it the appropriate lessons. They are clearly in need of some suggestions.

L1: My main question here is why LW1 is writing the letter now. Surely GD1 was known to present the situation she would present to LW1 and H1 at the beginning. The timetable with M1 seems a bit wonky. But, given that what is, is, who says that LW1 and H1 must give up their all? Who on earth is forcing either of them to attend GD1's sporting events? What self-respecting teenager wants such a thing? And of course the Prudecutor dreads her stepdaughter's eventual departure - without a third person in the house, the marriage is almost sure to disintegrate.

LW1 has been watching Daria and perhaps thought that being GD1's guardians would not prevent herself and H1 from living the life of Vincent and Amanda Lane, the parents of Jane and Trent who tend to be more conspicuously absent from home than present there. Perhaps she should try watching My So-Called Life instead. She might pay particular attention to the plight of Rickie in the Christmas and New Year's episodes.

L2: First off, is there any way on earth that the Prudecutor could have mangled this letter? She didn't come up with anything brilliant, but how much easier could her selectors have made it for her?  Even so, I must ask how on earth LW2, on the first or at the aboslute latest second occurrence of any of these highly offensive statements, falied to respond with something along the line of, "And my problems seem to make you feel so much better about yourself, don't they?"

LW2 has been watching Daria and thinking that there is no way to oust Sandi Griffin from the presidency of the Fashion Club. She might watch the episodes Art Burn and Life in the Past Lane, in which the downtrodden Stacy manages to score two significant victories over Sandi - in the first by secretly acquiring the caricature of the group in which Stacy was the only one portrayed in a complimentary fashion, and in the second through the success of her acting during Upchuck's apparently botched escape trick, which was made even worse for Sandi when both Tiffany and Quinn expressed interest in Stacy's teaching them to cry as useful in a variety of scial situations. Or go even better and watch Muriel's Wedding. Keep an eye open for the way in which Rhonda scores over Muriel's tormentors.

L3: It never occurred to the Prudecutor to wonder exactly why everybody knows that the couple in question has not consummated the marriage? Have the dynamics of modern life changed so drastically? Or has the column merged with Savage Love behind our backs?

LW3 has been watching the My Night with Daria episode in which Daria dithers about her first sexual experience with Tom, schedules it, backs out, makes a preemptory breakup, and reconciles. Nothing but drama at every turn. But, without losing that dramatic flair, there are two alternatives for LW3. One would be to watch Wilde with a view to learning to be thankful that this particular marriage has yet to be consummated (and perhaps giving F3 a hint to be wary of letting H3 spend much time in the company of blond undergraduates. The other would be to watch The Tudors and advise H3 to treat W3 as his sister, which did wonders for the relationship between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, who might reasonably be said to have gotten rather the best out of her marriage (whether despite or because of having gotten rather the least out of Henry himself is open to interpretation) of all the wives.

L4: LW4 has been watching the Is It Fall Yet? feature-length episode in which, when Daria's enthusiasm to find employment for the summer is conspicuously absent despite Quinn's surprising willingness to undergo tutoring in her quest to raise her SAT score to over 1,000, Helen enrolls Daria as a counselor at drippy Mr O'Neil's Okay to Cry Corral. But Daria does better than expected there, forging a bit of a bond with a young version of herself, Link, though with different problems. But Daria's progress is dwarfed by that of an even less likely counselor, Mr DeMartino. "Uncle Anthony" has difficulty with lanyards and fears he has gone too far when he lashes out at young Josh, who has drawn a picture of a football player because football players are winners. But this wins Uncle Anthony a round of cheers, as Josh was the worst bully in the camp. He goes on to differ with "Uncle Timothy" over whether the campers should be playing outside, swimming and hiking, or remaining safely indoors communicating with their inner selves, finally breaking down when a camper holds his hand and gets peanut butter on it. Mr DeMartino breaks the window to the delight of the entire camp, is popularly demanded to give the closing speech at the end-of-camp ceremony, and returns to Lawndale High eager to teach (where he is rewarded early the next school year when Quinn, fresh from her tutoring, is able to provide a creditable definition of Manifest Destiny).

LW4 ought to watch After the Funeral with her husband. The relatives of the deceased Richard Abernethy, having already survived his sister Cora's asking immediately after the funeral, "He was murdered, wasn't he?" gather after Cora's death to divide up furniture and china. Clearly H2's family need to establish this practice, and H2 needs to waste his first choice on LW2's quilt. These are valuable occasions - in ATF it is during the dispute over such things as china services and green malachite tables that the murderer makes a fatal mistake.

Moral: "Besides, quilting can be very therapeutic."