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 , won in 2005 by a team that included the author—didn't I warn you it was blatant Author Appeal?), where the team has been much buzzed about on the internet and has thus been mobbed by something resembling the paparazzi. Cue what would be the first, but the last, time that the hero goes into a James Bond tribute. To make things interesting, the writers avoided having the team win it outright, instead having them back into the championship from their second-place finish when the top team was disqualified for using an ineligible player. This would also give the new co-captains—Kat and (oh, I give up, I'll use my name) Chad—something to strive for so as to keep improving next year. There is an overall feel that something was resolved between the two, but no one quite knows what, as what happened on that bus, stayed on that bus.Technically still part of season 3 is the arrival of Sami and Mike's cousin Olli, who is not a Cousin Oliver, partially because he pretty much disappears after the summer arc and partly because his name's not Oliver, it's Olivier, "like the actor." He's kind of a Kid A Nova, or wants to be. We'll find him some cute girls to play with—next season, as the idiot made his debut 15 minutes before the end of the season finale!Season 4 picks up where season 3 left off, with the summer vacation arc. A couple of recurring characters (whose names escape me right now) introduced in season 3's winter break mini-arc return to give Olli something to do. However, it quickly appears that this arc may have just been spillover from season 3, as we quickly skip back to the start of the next school year, where the show gets new life from an old source—season 1's Token Mini-Moe, Ashley, who has developed into quite the lovely young lady and is starting high school (yes, the numbers really do add up—she was 11 when she first appeared, so if you assume that in spite of the apparent lack of continuity between the first three seasons, they really do take place a year apart, she should indeed be fourteen and starting 9th grade). The fact that her older sister Allie won season 1's Love Triangle helped to get her into the private school that serves as our setting, as the guy (who I can't remember if I gave a name to) is kind of wealthy. So about our shiny new toy—she's very charismatic and attracts an Instant Fan Club. She's also a bit of a rebel who leads her followers in promoting her agenda—female empowerment through sex appeal, which means frequently breaking the school's dress code. Um, yeah... Sami eventually ends up teaching her how to work around the school's rules so she won't get in trouble so much while still, well, providing fanservice. Other continuing themes with Ashley are a continual string of boyfriends who are star jocks, although this series being what it is, she eventually starts to develop a slight crush on Chad—something she insists is because he flirts with girls without even realizing he's doing it, something she'll call him out for a few times. Indeed, one of the continuing themes in season 4 is the fact that the Sami/Chad/Kat love triangle is far from resolved, in part because Chad admits that he still does love Kat, it's just that he loves Sami more. (Of course, most of the rest of the school thinks Chad and Kat are made for each other, particularly their fellow math team members. Yes, things can get kind of repetitive. Other things that are used to liven up season 4 are the core cast (well, season 3's core cast; Ashley is part of the core cast now as well) thinking about applying to colleges, and in late winter, another pair of characters that may be familiar to SpiriTsunami fans:* Rob and Lizzie from You Can't Spell Dream Without a D and an M—more or less an admission that said series is probably never going to get made. Lizzie, of course, was the Love Interest for the Author Avatar in that series, which is problematic here because he quite clearly has a love interest already—or, indeed, more than he knows what to do with. Despite another character already fulfilling this role in season 3, Lizzie acts extremely obsessed with Chad, which I believe led to the series' first lampshading, in this case of the fact that "Nerds Are Sexy" only goes so far. Get used to it, because this series is quite ridiculous, and knows it. Right now, however, the style is mostly to point out all the things that would be different if this were a TV show, although they obliquely acknowledge Chad's status as a Marty Stu. Lizzie managed to get the money to come there because she has become a big international model (yes, I know she's much too young; just deal with it.) Since the juniors and seniors have separate proms, Chad and Kat are forcibly paired up as junior prom king and queen, something that would become somewhat of a Running Gag. (Chad and Sami also used the classic "date switch" trick to bring Ashley and her current boyfriend along, something they would not do with the senior prom in season 5.) Also of note was that in response to the way Kat and Chad had developed such a close friendship that they could seamlessly work off of each other in witty banter (and this is saying something, as most of the main characters, especially Chad, talk at Lorelai Gilmore speeds), Chad and Sami develop an ability to essentially know each others' thoughts, which confuses the others as Sami is more in tune with Chad than she is with Mike. This leads to some brief angsting about the possibility that they could actually be half-siblings (I swear, the premise of this show seems familiar...), but it is eventually decided that maybe it's more of a "nature vs. nurture" thing and that because they essentially grew up together, they developed the link the same way twins do. (This ignores the fact that even twins that are Separated at Birth often have Twin Telepathy.) Season 4 wraps up with another edition of the math competition, which they win in a blowout. Also, in order to keep him from becoming completely irrelevant, Mike starts a long-distance relationship with one of the two recurring characters from the various vacation arcs. Season 5 starts out with the usual—have more harem drama, introduce new characters (including a Perky Goth Love Interest for math club member Kevin)—before remembering that Chad's younger sister celebrated becoming a Bat Mitzvah in season 3 and should therefore be a freshman now, and quickly reintroduced her by having one of Chad's classes being disrupted by a fight breaking out in a nearby class, which Chad initially wants to ignore (a radical departure from form for him) before being told that "you might want to rethink that"; this implied that she had been there all along and just hadn't been shown until that point. Luckily, it was still early in the season. (This initially being forgotten was perfectly justified, as my real-life sister is four years younger than me, not three. And no, you're not getting a name this time, no matter what. Giving my own name on the internet is one thing; giving her name is quite another. Besides, there is some serious Adaptation Decay from Real Life, and I'm afraid to put her name on the character—and even more afraid of what would happen if she ever found out about it.) The reason for this fight? Someone called her a lesbian. Chad insists on talking to her about her actions after school. Upon seeing her, Ashley says she should've figured it was time to add a new member to the harem. Chad's sister plays along and the others, who have all already met her, just laugh about this until someone finally fills Ashley in. Ashley, meanwhile, has secretly started seeing Mike, which is why she ends up in the area when the blizzard hits—though for some unexplained reason (probably plot contrivance), it's Chad's house she gets stuck at. Thus begins the blizzard arc, initially just starring Ashley, Sami, Chad, and his sister, though Mike eventually manages to get across the snow (with a rope between the second-story windows and snowshoes) after the actual snow stops and it's just a matter of being snowed in. This is a very important arc for many reasons, primarily this line, uttered right as the storm begins:
Well, actually, you guys have the advantage of the creator here—season 5is in progress now, and Season 6 isn't due to start airing until the fall. You know, on the network that, like everything else here, does not actually exist. And mind you, many of the other shows on that network are even weirder. I can't give all of them pages here, however, as many of them are either too fractured or weren't actually scripted by me, merely conceived and then turned over to my fictional team of writers. The only other series besides Dream and its semi-related series The Chaos Chronicles that received any extended amount of scripting from me was Räg Adventures, and even that was turned over to the other scribes midway through season 6 (of 8). Well, okay, and the since-canceled The Life Enchanted, and one other series whose mere name is not mentionable in public (for copyright reasons). Occasionally I'd also do a script for Hotel California, Pleased As Punch, The Maine Event, or Almost Legal—usually a first-season episode or a season finale—and many of the early episodes of Take Five! were done by me back when that series still had stand-alone episodes. And with it finally coming to a conclusion in June 2009 after seven long years, I naturally took care of the series finale for Hellspawn Angel.A list of (mostly faux) series that were in part inspired by my sleeping mind:
Due to the significance of the ramblings there, they shall be left in, though Season 5 would now be airing and "production" on season 6 has begun. We'll take it from the end of season 5, which is followed up by the Honeymoon Special (in classic CCX "there is no such thing as pure Filler" form, a new character is introduced midway through this—a Cuban defector named Marco, who stows away on the ship). Prior to the start of the first episode of Season 6, Kat comes to complain about having demoted all the way out of the opening credits. Then we get started and immediately begin adding on cast members, both out west with Sami and Chad, and back in Park Place, where (as usual) incoming freshmen spice up the cast. The fact that the only two major characters returning in Park Place are bisexuals in a lesbian relationship will of course make this rather interesting, and when our new duo is asked if they also "swing both ways", they reply, "Only at cons." That's the type of crowd-pleaser we need on this show!And yes, the aforementioned revolution will be televised. On ESPN. In an event that I couldn't have possibly planned better, as when I'd picked the school that Chad and Sami would attend, they weren't the type of team that would be ranked—not in football, anyway. Guess where they are now? Smack dab in the midst of a resurgence. (All game footage appears courtesy of ESPN.) Goes viral as soon as a conference rival picks it up as a threat to their reputation as having the best-looking cheerleaders in the country, as proven by anonymous player polls. ...You were expecting a California University? Please; this show prides itself on being relevant, albeit irreverent. Right now, we've just had a two-parter so cute, I had to do an episode review. Squee!Unfortunately, this is pretty much the only good part of season 6, and before we even hit winter break we've already resorted to coming out of a commercial break with Chad and Sami seemingly Breaking the Fourth Wall with a complaint about how bad this show's gotten and how they should've ended the show after high school graduation...only to have the camera pan around to reveal that they're watching a rerun of Saved by the Bell: The College Years. Crude, yes, but undeniable—California University might have been better, as Kat is sorely missed. (To a lesser extent, so is Nick, but he is both less necessary and makes more guest appearances.Thankfully, another boost comes from Chronicles of Park Place, a pseudo-season running concurrent to the end of season 5 and into the summer block. It skews slightly younger, but it's nevertheless a perfect fit for the Tuesday night block that used to feature the aforementioned Hellspawn Angel at 10PM and still features Park Place (moved from 9 to 10) and the ultra-grim You Are Here (at 9). Well, it's running concurrent; it actually takes place a year before season 3. It introduces a new group of characters whose plot will then be spun into the second half of season 6, though exactly where the old characters come into play is unknown. Either way, it brings the type of drama that the show had been lacking recently—and if it ain't dark, it ain't Tuesday. (At its current romantic comedy pace, it was just a few steps away from getting bumped to "Hot and Sexy Fridays", except there wasn't much material for "grim, dark Tuesdays" anyway so it was kind of stuck there. Presumably this would bump Almost Legal to Thursday, Mala-Mutt back to Animated Saturdays where it belongs, Six of One into Mala-mutt's spot on "Family-Friendly Mondays", the Thursday episode of Good Morning Texas into the first half of Take Five!'s slot on "Wacky Wednesdays", to be twinned with having boh of the "filler" shows running concurrently instead of alternating, and Take Five! would end up on Tuesdays. Though I cannot imagine a stranger move than going from Wednesday to Tuesday; the former is mostly filled with laugh tracks and the latter is gray to black. New arcs are attempting to be created and possibly Mixed together, and there will probably be references to Conn A&M. (If memory served, these characters will be college freshmen next year...and 18-1* was two years ago...So yeah,they'd be fourth-yeat seniors as our coure crue reaches college age. New at
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