How To Fix The OC — UPDATED - 
by B-side
The OC is in trouble. The once witty and addictive show has hit the skids this season, and if the writers don't act quickly, they'll effectively alienate most of their audience. I've always been a big booster of The OC. I think the show has great potential, but somewhere along the line the writers and producers lost sight of what makes the show work in favor of what they think will make them popular. Yes, there will always be people who think The OC can do no wrong, and there will always be people who think The OC will always be crap. But for everyone else in between — and I think it's safe to say that's the majority of the viewers (based on no statistical evidence whatsoever) — The OC has become a frustrating experience. We approach each episode thinking "This will be the one where they bring back the magic," but by the end of the show we're usually disappointed, wishing we'd spent less time with The Killers and more time with the characters.
Luckily, we here at TVgasm are always happy to lend our services to an ailing show. After careful analysis, we've come up with a (lengthy) set of guidelines to steer The OC back on course. Our advice after the jump...
Last season, The OC quickly gained that ever-elusive status of "buzz-worthy". That's because what looked like a simple teen soap turned out to be a cleverly written, multi-layered show that adults could not only enjoy but recommend to their peers. The series was a fun mix of classism, witty banter, and pulpy story lines. Tonally, the show worked best when it kept things light and funny with occasional touches of darkness. A multi-episode run featuring a hectic Thanksgiving, a cotillion gone wrong, a gay outing, and the famed Chrismakkuh celebration served as the golden age for this show. Those episodes featured minimum brooding and a complex interweaving of all the characters in each other's stories.
These days, Desperate Housewives has effectively become the nighttime soap du jour. Like The OC's first season, the ABC hit benefits from sharp writing, campy plots, a light and humorous tone, and an elaborate web of characters so interconnected that conflicts just seem to organically flow forth. Sadly, The OC has lost many of these qualities. It tries to keep things peppy and fun, but everything simply feels forced, especially since half the characters are crying or brooding or complaining most of the time anyway. Conflicts arrive on the characters' doorstep with a thud, and the entire world of The OC seems to have disappeared completely. So what should the writers do?
1) Provide a context.
At this point, The OC could very well be named "The Cohens." It's no longer about class conflict and personal strife in paradise. It's about a large extended family and the unfortunate guest characters that occasionally cross its path. In its second season, the show has quietly tossed away the entire social context of the very geographical location from which it derives its name. Gone are the crazy teen parties with the threesomes in the bedroom and the cocaine in the bathroom and the keg in the livingroom and the fights on the beach. Gone are the menacing water polo bullies and any other clique that might be roaming through the high school. Gone are the snotty Newport ladies gossiping after Yoga-lates class and throwing silly key parties.
Yes, the high school parties have been replaced with Seth and Ryan playing video games or visiting the Bait Shop (more on that later). The high school heirarchy has been replaced with a comic book club. And the Newport wags have been replaced with... Caleb. There's no socio-economic context, and without that, there are no social pressures on any of these characters. For example, Seth was endearing as the nerdy high schooler who pined after the hot, popular Summer but feared the wrath of the ever vengeful jocks, led by Luke. Now Seth is neither popular nor unpopular. He no longer navigates through the complex social environment of Newport Beach. He just sort of exists and complains. There's no backdrop to his character, and for once, we actually do feel like he's sort of a loser.
Similarly, there's a disconnect between the characters and the audience, making it increasingly difficult to relate. Before, we recognized their plights, their pressures, their motivations because in some way, they reflected ours at some point. We remember the excitement of going to high school parties, the fear of not dressing the right way, the apprehension of talking to that girl or guy who really wants nothing to do with you. Now the characters live in a vacuum. They rarely break out of their circle and seem to spend a large amount of time with their parents. Everyone is squeaky clean, except of course Marissa whose vices can all be chalked up to her being a bad girl. No one seems to, well, party anymore. That's not to say that everyone in high school drinks and smokes and has threesomes amidst piles of cocaine, but teenagers aren't completely innocent either. I'm sorry to report that Marissa's "deviant" behavior isn't so crazy in most high schools. Also, why not make high school a little less incidental. These characters can do more than sit in a lounge and drink coffee. There's a whole world of petty yet universal drama to be had in the hallowed hallways and soccer fields of high school. How the writers could fail to exploit this is beyond me. The show needs to reintroduce both the scholastic and social contexts in order to make this teen environment believable.
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