It’s one of the most well-known rise-and-fall stories in contemporary television. (Or maybe, 21 years down the road, not so contemporary anymore, sigh.) The O.C. season 1? One of the most impressive TV debuts of all-time, a zeitgeist-commanding tour de force of sudsy Newport Beach waves that gave us Seth Cohen, yogalates, Chrismukkah, Rooney…the list goes on, and most importantly, it still holds up. Another equally agreed-upon fact? The show fell off a cliff creatively not long after—so much so that by season 3, creator Josh Schwartz and his writers’ room were resorting to tried-and-true network-TV cliches like actually having a major character fall off a cliff to his death. But that demerit has never diminished the show’s lasting legacy; a series that comes out of the gate with 27 tightly crafted hours of pitch-perfect White Plight melodrama and escapism, with a distinct tone, immediately compelling characters, and paradigm-shifting execution (starting with the aughts-indie soundtrack that helped elevate many a stirring sequence to timeless status) earns itself a lot of bail and goodwill. 27 hours was a deluxe episode order then; it would constitute about three seasons worth of story today. It burned bright, but it inevitably burned out quickly.
Of course, there were many more behind-the-scenes factors that led to The O.C.’s swift decline, from on-set tensions to multiple identity crises spurred by network-suit interference. It’s all laid out in engrossing detail in the show’s official oral history, orchestrated by Alan Sepinwall and published in 2023 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the pilot episode. I finally cracked the book open earlier this year and launched a concurrent rewatch which I finally wrapped last week. And that exercise reconfirmed an opinion I’ve had since the show’s original run. Does The OC fall off? Slowly, but surely, yes—much of the third season is just as atrocious as I remember. But having said that, season 4 doesn’t get nearly enough credit for mounting one of the all-time great TV comebacks.
I’m a day one O.C. fan; I still remember the August series premiere right around my thirteenth birthday, mostly because of how jarring it was to see such a genuinely intriguing show debut at that time of the year. In 2003, summer was still a dumping ground; most networks wouldn’t be rolling out the real heat for another four to six weeks. But The O.C., with its coming-of-age tale following Chino Hills sensitive thug turned Orange County adoptee Ryan Atwood, took the early opening void by storm. The show came out of the gate firing on every story cylinder: Ryan’s courtship of It-Girl Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), who copes with the dissolution of her perfect life in all the worst ways; his brotherhood with Seth Cohen (Adam Brody, giving a still-reverberating performance that redefined the cool hipster nerd); and both boys’ relationship with Hall of Fame TV Dad Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), the impossibly warm and wise public defender who takes a chance on Ryan in the first place. Bromance, brooding star-crossed romance, beachside fistfights, a killer soundtrack—hell, even the subplots for the kids’ parents were genuinely compelling, a teen-drama rarity (and probably a big reason why the show still holds up beyond nostalgia; these days I’m more invested in whether Sandy and his wife Kirsten will make it more than Ryan and Marissa). By the time other new series were premiering, The O.C. was already wrapping up a seven-episode kickoff arc that concluded with Ryan solemnly carrying Marissa out of a dark Tijuana alley where she had collapsed from an accidental overdose in the aftermath of her family’s sudden implosion. I, along with the rest of the country, was locked in.
Fast forward three seasons and Ryan is carrying an incapacitated Marissa again, in the final moments of the finale, this time from a car wreck caused by a spiteful ex. Only this time, she doesn’t make it—the most popular actor on the show dies right there on the road. It was sad, and—even though Mischa Barton had somewhat spitefully spoiled the surprise by that point—shocking, and easily the darkest, most consequential thing the series had done to that point.
So it’s bemusing that the fourth and final season is a breath of fresh air, and somehow, the silliest and most comedic iteration of the series. It’s not as capital-c Cool as season 1, but it may be the series’ second-best, free of the self-conscious sophomore jinx all-over-the-placeness that plagues the otherwise solid season 2. The O.C. has two main gears: brooding melodrama and endearing family dramedy; season 3 is gloomy in all the most boring ways and painfully unfunny, so naturally season 4 course-corrects the opposite way. And as it turns out, if The OC could no longer serve both masters, the latter was its strongest muscle. And the only thing that had to happen to achieve that clarity was killing off Marissa.
