Like OMG! Did Kristin kill ‘The O.C.’?

“Out to pasture”… “out of its misery… “killed”…

The fallout from the cancellation of The O.C. gets into full swing in newspapers and on websites around the world this morning, with many wondering how a show could go from pop culture phenomenon to fly-covered roadkill in four short seasons (this final season even shorter than the others).

Most everyone’s pointing to the rule-breaking decision to kill off a lead character (the series dying with Mischa), Fox’s scheduling blunders, and the idea that the media loved the series more than teenagers did (according to The Washington Post, this latest season only delivered 500,00 of you).

But leave it to our pal Nikki Finke, the toughest, most uncensored pitbull reporter in Hollywood, to point the finger of blame without hesitation:

Kristin Cavallari did it!

Nikki writes on her Deadline Hollywood Daily site:

…The bitches and himbos on MTV’s Laguna Beach series– aka The Real O.C. — kinda made the fictionalized O.C. seem tame.

Reality killed the prime time soap star? No comment from Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows, but it sure makes sense.

And while Nikki brushes off rumours that The O.C. will resurface on The CW, O.C. creator Josh Schwartz promises that the series’ February 22 funeral– er, finale– “will deliver real closure to the series, to the story we began telling four years ago… fun and emotional and I think really satisfying… the finale we always planned to do.” Only maybe not so soon…

(A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to Nikki Finke for giving us another excuse to run an item about Kristin Cavallari.)

–Tabloid Baby