On the YouTubes: A Fistful of Color Chips

Who says that Reston has lacked culture since its crowning artistic triumph? Please to be enjoying the first episode of the fancy Web series "Thurston," created by Reston couple Paul Awad and Kathryn O’Sullivan. "Thurston" has been nominated for the 3rd annual Indie Soap Awards for best Web series in the drama category, along with a number of individual awards. Tell us more, old-timey "news paper!"

"Thurston" tells the story of the residents of a remote mining town in the Kansas Ozarks and their struggle for survival. O’Sullivan, a theater professor at the Manassas Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College, wrote the screenplay for the series; Awad, an instructor in video and film-making at The Art Institute of Washington, D.C., directs and films the series.

Since Lake Anne's brutalist concrete splendor isn't exactly the closest fit to the Old West, visually speaking, the series has been filmed in Wytheville, Virginia -- at "a western theme park, complete with a dusty main street and faded clapboard buildings." In other words, an old-timey Fake Downtown, minus the frozen yogurt and Pottery Barn. Let's just hope an upcoming episode doesn't involve the sheriff arresting a mysterious stranger trying to make an unauthorized daguerreotype plate near the fountain watering hole, the end.