OC Season Report Card: When Good Shows Go… Less Good

The O.C.

By B-Side | Thursday, May 13, 2004 | 11:00 pm | 1 Comments

The OC swept into our living rooms last summer like a breath of fresh Newport Beach air – and left us two weeks ago like the smog over The 5 Freeway. Like the eponymous county, the show was at once beautiful, charming, and colorful — but also left us with a mediocre aftertaste.I suppose it’s time I drop the metaphors. THE OC started out great, and after about ten episodes, it began a precipitous decline that only occasionally seemed to reverse itself. The first half of the season provided us with a campy, but well written look into the world of this Newport Beach community. The teens drank – and not in that lame Afterschool Special way. They really drank – from red plastic cups and kegs. And when they weren’t drinking, they were having threesomes, or even firing off shotguns. Suddenly, we weren’t in the world of Beverly Hills 90210. All the teens didn’t stop and say ‘Man, drinking is bad for us. We should be responsible teens.’ No, they just kept on drinking – and poor Marissa, she was lucky if she even made it to her bed – episode one had her snuggling up to some wayward ants on the blacktop of her driveway.

While the teens all cavorted on the beaches and displayed remarkable local pride (“This is how we do it in The OC, bitch!”), the adults actually spent a lot of time acting like, well, adults. Sandy and Kirsten Cohen were a strongly written duo whose interactions – throughout the entire season, no less – remained mature and thankfully unmelodramatic. Add the camp factor with Julie Cooper, the witty banter of Seth Cohen, the romantic tension of Summer, and the over the top bully of Luke, and we can pretty much ignore Mischa Barton’s ill-advised attempts at acting (darting eyes and awkward vocal inflections do not a great actress make).

By November, The OC had become a well-oiled machine with a nearly flawless Thanksgiving episode followed by the Luke’s Gay Dad gem and then the catchphrase spawning Christmakkuh installment. But by the New Years episode, the machine started to sputter. Suddenly, the teens were spending more time with the adults than at parties with other kids. Ryan – the bad seed, supposedly – was starting to become righteous by condemning Marissa’s drinking habits, and Oliver had, well, come into existence.

Over the next few months – and hitting fever pitch with the notorious Rooney episode – The OC began falling apart. Righteousness seemed to be the soup du jour as nearly every episode featured Ryan ponderously scolding whoever whenever wherever (no one seemed to care about his unprotected sex though). The irreverance that was so anti-Beverly Hills 90210 was gone, and in its place the Afterschool Special. Furthermore, as the Oliver saga dragged on – and then later its aftermath – Ryan and Marissa took centerstage with their laborious and way too melodramatic hijinx. Luckily, Seth, Summer and Anna kept things going for us – but how can we not get frustrated when the most interesting characters are relegated to the sidelines? Also, remember when Marissa, Summer and Luke were cool? At what point did they all become dorks? Can we have a little high school context here?

We did get a few bones tossed our way – namely Julie and Luke, a beauty of a soap storyline. Come to think of it, anything with Julie was pretty much destined to be great. Haley has been a nice addition too. And a breezy episode in Las Vegas gave us hope that the writers hadn’t totally forgotten the spirit of the show.

Unfortunately, a somber and emo-filled season finale reminded us of the lame direction the series seemed to take. It’s not too late for The OC though. There are still all those lovable quirks: Kirsten turning to the bottle when the going gets tough, the predictable cueing of the emo music before the show’s closing credits, the lighthearted breakfast banter accompanied by spritely plucking strings, and of course the liberal use of ‘hey’ as the preferred salutation in Newport Beach. Ryan and Marissa alone challenge the eskimos’ 26 words for “snow” with their various “hey” inflections.

I’m not a hater of The OC. Truth is that I love it. I gripe because I love. We need more Seth and Summer, less Paris Hilton/Death Cab for Cutie-esque guest spots. We need storylines to pan out and not shoot their loads in two episodes (whatever happened to that flirty lawyer in Sandy’s firm? Wasn’t she dating Jimmy when, oh nevermind…). For better or worse, I’ll be watching.

Season Grade: B+

What do you think? Post a comment…

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One Comment

  1. 1
    Grabz
    Posted May 24, 2004 at 12:06 pm

    Bravo, Fox. Finally, some good ˜ol teen drama.

    In the spirit of supporting this new fantastic site for TV gossip and The OC, I will put in my two cents on what has been called, mostly by its mother network, “the hottest new show this season.”

    First, as a student of television and one who prides herself on keeping up with the TV trends (all reality programming aside), I must commend Fox for finally recognizing the success of The WB and trying to capitalize on the teen demographic as well as giving those of us with a propensity for teen drama something to look forward to on Wednesday night. This season, Fox opened with a series of new dramas, The OC, Tru Calling and Wonder Falls. Clearly, The OC is the success story here – at least comparatively – and it will be my focus. However, before I go any further, I must shamelessly plug Tru Calling. For those of you who are still recovering from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer finale and are about to mourn the recent conclusion of Angel, Fox is aware of your loss and has given you something to ease the pain. Fox has created a sequel, well sort-of, for your viewing enjoyment. Buffy’s reformed Faith, played by Eliza Dushku, is now Tru Davies, an aspiring medical student who works in a morgue and can commune with the dead. It’s pretty simple: the dead ask her for help, her day rewinds and she must try to save them or those around them before they die – again. True, Tru (no pun intended) is no Buffy “ but it works. With the combined elements of the supernatural and crime-solving, Eliza is back in action. The recent addition of Jason Priestly, everyone’s favorite Peach Pit employee, as the ˜force’ that opposes her and tries to keep her from saving lives has made things a bit more interesting. Airing on Thursday night from 8-9 p.m., it provides entertainment where the once-sacred Friends slot is no more. Finally, Wonder Falls is an intriguing little drama with a quirky yet down-to-Earth Ivy league graduate who works in a tourist retail store. The premise of the program lies in the personification of inanimate objects who speak to her and instruct her on tasks that, in an odd way, affects real-life events. While there might be a seeming higher purpose to her actions here, this show will sadly probably not survive the Friday evening line-up. In fact, it may be off the air already. O.K., now back to The O.C.

    So, bravo, Fox. While NBC has, to date, only attempted Friends’ re-makes such as Coupling, at least we can turn to Fox for some solid teen (and even adult) drama that has included love triangles, teen pregnancy, drug addiction and the outing of a gay parent all in the first season. While I can only agree with others’ assessment that the first half of the season was far superior to the second half, let us not give up hope. The OC has certainly been a refreshing cool breeze of prime-time melodrama in a market that has been over-saturated with reality programming (translation: TV packaging agents benefiting from the trials and tribulations of our average Joe’s).

    When I first started to see the ads for “the hottest new show this season,” I thought ˜yeah, right “ this show will be cancelled within three episodes.’ Sure enough, it IS the hottest new show this season. While the WB struggles to use similar marketing techniques with One Tree Hill, it simply does not compare. It is engaging to the extent that I care about what happens to the characters so long as it’s amusing. It is eye/mind candy and I definitely need my weekly dose. And, as far as protagonists go, let’s not kid ourselves here – the real star here is Adam Brody as Seth Cohen. The sarcastic and witty fast-talking ˜Cohen’ is the both dork and heart-throb at the same time. Although his sailing off into the horizon in the season finale was a bit over the top, he’s our guy “ or “face to watch” for those of you alum magazine readers. Who would choose the brooding Ryan over Seth these days? In fact, does Ryan have any other emotions? I think not. Though skeptical at first, I firmly promote The O.C. these days in spite of its second-half season critiques.

    Before you think me to be overly positive on this program and not a critic at all, let me address one “minor” detail that our good friend and creator Josh Schwartz seems to have forgotten: What ever happened to Caitlin? “Who?,” you ask¦Caitlin “ Marissa’s younger sister “ Julie Cooper’s other daughter. It is all coming back now. Right, there were two “ one with the drinking/Oliver problem and the other who seemed to be incessantly engaged in a riding or dance lesson, years behind the drugs, fights and generally self-adulating parties of those living in Newport Beach. In the theme of starting and stopping storylines, this, for me, has been the ultimate faux pas “ unless of course I missed a graceful exit somewhere between the banter of Seth and Summer and the darting looks between Ryan and Marissa. Can anyone shed some light on the disappearance of Caitlin?

    But, alas, I must have hope “ I DO have hope. The O.C. is certainly my season pick as it provides both eye candy and a much needed teen melodrama where the parents are as pretty as their children and their characters are permitted their very own twisted love triangles. Moreover, Melrose and 90210 are ancient TV history “ it’s just about time. I hope The O.C. survives so I can continue my Wednesday night indulgence into the land of irony where dorks become cool and the cool become dorks, and I think I might actually marry Seth Cohen.

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