When enough is enough

(3) The Olsen twins
We never much liked "Full House," and the whole twins-as-one-character thing only made it creepier, but it's fair to acknowledge that plenty of people loved it. Plenty of people also loved the endless "Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley" videos that served as Nancy Drew Lite for the DVD generation.

Jennifer Graylock / AP file Ashley Olsen, left, and Mary-Kate Olsen pose at the May 2004 world premiere of their movie "New York Minute" at the 3rd Annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York. They've got three more years at NYU, but so far the Big Apple doesn't seem to have been their city of dreams.

But the humorless marketing juggernaut that is Dualstar Entertainment hasn't been able to save the twins from more than their share of mishaps since they shipped off to college in New York, complete with plush condo and reports of special treatment by their laid-back academic overseers.

College is a tough time for any teen, and Mary-Kate certainly isn't the first girl that age to take a reported time-out for treatment of anorexia — though most don't simultaneously appear as McDonald's spokespeople.

Frankly, we're more concerned about the gossip we're likely to see in the next three years. College is also a time for exploration, and the occasional adult beverage or two — and we've spent enough time around Greenwich Village to know that undergraduates do occasionally have one too many Jäger shots on occasion. (We also remember the Jenna Bush episodes with great clarity.)

But that's not the real problem. As the Olsens' handlers would very much like us to remember, the twins are a brand. But their videos don't exactly have staying power, since they've been targeted to an audience who's also growing up and not interested in tween detective stories anymore. And "New York Minute" wasn't a cinematic tour de force.

New York being a place where acting can be taught, perhaps their time in the Big Apple could serve for the girls to figure out some useful next career steps. Because dolls get thrown away, videos get recycled and fans grow up. And you need to grow up with them.

Train wreck factor: 7 in 10.

Could take a lesson from: Kirsten Dunst. Dunst started in movies, but she's also shown that she can range from "The Virgin Suicides" to her "Bring It On" cheerleading without ever making us doubt her talent.

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