Meg Cabot - Mia Goes Fourth

wearing interesting and generally navel-baring outfits. How could this show be bad?

Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Lilly: Though based on comic-book characters, this show is surprisingly affable, and even occasionally amusing. Although, sadly, actual Wiccan practices are not described. The show could benefit from some research into the age-old religion that has, through the centuries, empowered millions, primarily females. The talking cat is a bit suspect: I have not read any believable documentation that would support the possibility of transfiguration.

Mia: Totally awesome during the high school/Harvey years. Goodbye Harvey - goodbye show.

Baywatch

Lilly: Puerile garbage.

Mia: Most excellent show of all time. Everyone is good-looking; you can fully follow every plotline, even while instant messaging;

and there are lots of pictures of the beach, which is great when you are in dark gloomy Manhattan in February. Best episode:

when Pamela Anderson Lee got kidnapped by that half-man/half-beast, who after plastic surgery became a professor at UCLA. Worst episode: anytime Mitch adopts a son.

Powerpuff Girls

Lilly: Best show on television.

Mia: Ditto. Nuffsaid.

Roswell High

Lilly: An intriguing look at the possibility that aliens live among us. The fact that they might be teenagers, and extraordinarily attractive ones at that, stretches the show's credibility somewhat.

Mia: Hot guys with alien powers. What more can you ask? High point Future Max; any time anybody made out in the eraser

room. Low point: when that skanky Tess showed up.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Lilly: Feminist empowerment at its peak, entertainment at its best. The heroine is a lean, mean, vampire-killing machine, who worries as much about her immortal soul as she does messing up her hair. A strong role model for

young women - nay, people of all sexes and ages will benefit from the viewing of this show. All of television should

be this good. The fact that this show has, for so long, been ignored by the Emmys is a travesty.

Mia: If only the Buffster could just find a boyfriend who doesn't need to drink platelets to survive. High point

any time there's kissing. Low point none.

Gilmore Girls

Lilly: Thoughtful portrayal of single mother struggling to raise teenage daughter in a small, northeastern town.

Mia: Many, many, many, many, many, many cute boys. Plus it is nice to see single moms who sleep with their kid's teacher getting respect instead of lectures from the Moral Majority.

Charmed

Lilly: While this show at least accurately portrays historical Wiccan practices, the spells these girls routinely cast are completely unrealistic. You cannot, for instance, travel through time or between dimensions without creating rifts in the space-time continuum. Were these girls really to transport themselves to seventeenth-century Puritan America, they would arrive there with their oesophaguses ripped inside out, not neatly stuffed into a corset, as no one can

travel through a wormhole and maintain their mass integrity. It is a simple matter of physics. Albert Einstein must

be spinning in his grave.

Mia: Hello, witches in hot clothes. Like Sabrina, only better because the boys are cuter, and sometimes they are

in danger and the girls have to save them.

Thursday; January 21.

Gifted and Talented

Tina is so mad at Jane Eyre. She says Jane Eyre ruined her life.

She announced this at lunch. Right in front of Michael, who isn't supposed to know about the whole Jane Eyre technique

of not chasing boys thing, but, whatever. He admitted to never having read the book, so I think it is a safe bet he didn't

know what Tina was talking about.

Still, it was way sad. Tina said she is giving up her romance novels. Giving them up because they led to the ruination of

her relationship with Dave!

We were all very upset to hear about this. Tina loves reading romances. She reads about one a day.

But now she says that if it weren't for romance novels, she, and not this mysterious Jasmine person, would be going to

the Rangers game with Dave Farouq El-Abar this Saturday.

And my pointing out that she doesn't even like hockey didn't seem to help.

Lilly and I both realized that this was a pivotal moment in Tina's adolescent growth. It needed to be pointed out to her that Dave, not Jane, was the one who'd pulled the plug on their relationship . . . and, that when looked at objectively, the whole thing was probably for the best. It was ludicrous for Tina to blame romance novels for her plight.

So Lilly and I very quickly drew up the following list, and presented it to Tina, in the hope that she would see the error of

her ways:

Mia and Lilly's List of Romantic Heroines

and the Valuable Lessons Each Taught Us:

1. Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre:

Stick to your convictions and you will prevail.

2. Lorna Doone from Lorna Doone:

Probably you are secretly royalty and an heiress, only no one has told you yet (this applies to Mia Thermopolis, as well).

3. Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice:

Boys like it when you are smart-alecky.

4. Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind:

Ditto.

5. Maid Marian from Robin Hood:

It is a good idea to learn how to use a bow and arrow.

6. Jo March from Little Women:

Always keep a second copy of your manuscript handy in case your vindictive little sister throws your first draft

on the fire.

7. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables:

One word: Clairol.

8. Marguerite St Juste from The Scarlet Pimpernel:

Check out your husband's rings before you marry him.

9. Cathy, from Wuthering Heights:

Don't get too big for your breeches or you too will have to wander the moors in lonely heartbreak after you die.

10. Juliet from Romeo and Juliet:

If you're going to fake your own death, it might be nice if you clued your husband in about it first, to avoid any

tragic mishaps later.

Tina, after reading the list, admitted tearfully that we were right, that romantic heroines really were her friends, and that she could not, in good conscience, forsake them. We were all just breathing a sigh of relief (except for Michael and Boris; they were playing on Michael's Gameboy) when Shameeka made a sudden announcement, even more startling than Tina's:

'I'm trying out for cheerleading.'

We were, of course, stunned. Not because Shameeka would make a bad cheerleader - she is the most athletic of us all,

also the most attractive, and knows almost as much as Tina does about fashion and make-up.

It was just that, as Lilly so bluntly put it, 'Why would you want to go and do something like that?'

'Because,' Shameeka explained, 'I am tired of letting Lana and her friends push me around. I am just as good as any of them. Why shouldn't I try out for the squad, even if I'm not in their little clique? I have just as good a chance of getting on the team