Small Screen Wednesday >> Camp

TV series are getting more and more popular. Lots of quality TV shows on the small screen nowadays, and lots of trashy yet addictive one as well. Once in a week I allow myself to talk about them.

I was not (and still am not) a camper; I don’t do summer camp or spiritual camp or whatever reason you can come up with to go sleep in a tent at the edge of a jungle. You gather around at a campfire at night and sing some tunes about “we are young, live life to the full, no regret” shit while someone plays the guitar. Mosquitoes feed on your blood while you are lying on the ground looking at the stars. That was my definition of camping. Apparently I was wrong. Camping is so different now, everything is so modernized people don't even sleep in a tent anymore.

So why did I watch this series in the first place? It is called Camp after all, the title literally gives everything away. OK, confession time, I decided to give it a go solely because of the fact that it stars Rachel Griffiths, an emotional tie to my favorite series Brothers and Sisters (which I just wrote about two weeks ago). She was the only cast member I knew of, but i would gladly watch anything she's in.

The series follows the antics of a group of campers and counselors at a lakeside summer camp named Little Otter Family Camp, run by director Mackenzie 'Mack' Granger (played by Griffiths). Mackenzie's husband recently left her for a younger lady so she has to run the camp all by herself with the help of a few CITs (counselors-in-training). Her camp is relatively older and less prosperous than the one across the lake run by Roger, a guy with prick-like personality who has a love-hate relationship with Mackenzie. Among the CITs are a hot guy who is about to go to law school, a hot girl who swims really good and is the girlfriend of the hot guy, a newcomer nerd who is skeptical of everything, a newcomer girl who is an outcast, and a bizarre dude who happens to be Mackenzie's son.

So for 10 episodes we are fed with stories of these people and how they spend their summer at the camp swimming and drinking (yes, those adults drink a lot and discuss sex). The youngsters have their tangled relationships, and the adults have theirs too. In between these the writers squeeze is some fun activities like a gay wedding and a family day where the two rival camps participate in a series of competitions. Most of the episodes play like a High School Musical without the music (or rather, a Teen Beach Movie without the beach), it's relax and harmless. You get to see pretty boys and pretty girls frequently take off their shirts or in a bikini, you get to see Rachel Griffiths acted as if she's still playing Sarah Walker (I love her really, but despite Mackenzie and Sarah Walker being two totally different characters I feel like she recycled her acting from Brothers and Sisters here; maybe it's just the B&S bias inside of me talking).

When I watched this series, I had already read on Wikipedia that it's been cancelled so no more season 2. I'm not too upset about it. It's a short series that has yet to grow inside of me. The last episode kinda closes every plot nicely so I have no problem saying goodbye to it. If you ask me whether this series changes my perception towards camping, I would say yes it does. But if you ask me whether I am going to a camp soon after watching this series, I would say no, this series has not yet built such an impact on me. For a casual three-day viewing, however, this short series is still a good choice.