The O.C. Turns Ten

            Last year, my brother introduced his college roommates to “The O.C.” They plowed through the show quickly, and at the end of their marathon, I gave them some leftover t-shirts, hats, and cups from the season four party pack that I received from Fox in 2006. The sheer joy and excitement from college students in their twenties at memorabilia from a show that had been off the air nearly six years at that point was something to behold. What it reminded me of was that “The O.C.,” which turns ten on August 5, was something special. The joy the show brought at its best (and even at its worst, honestly) was infectious. It was unequaled by anything I’d seen prior and anything I’ve seen since. Yes, I’ve seen shows with a longer stretch of good episodes (“The O.C.” is rare in that it’s remembered for its excellence when well over half of its 92-episode run was poor), and yes, I’ve seen shows that are overall stronger, but I’ve never experienced a show the way I experienced “The O.C.”

            To someone who wasn’t around in 2003, it’s hard to explain the way “The O.C.” caught on. I was ignorant to television criticism at the time, but I can say that within the confines of my high school, or at least within the confines of my group of friends, the show was unrivaled in its ability to make us talk, think, question, and scream. I have a vivid picture of a buddy of mine sitting in class one Thursday afternoon, throwing his head back in excitement because of the previews for the next week (often our predictions about what was to come overshadowed our discussion of what happened, but that was hardly a fault of the show; rather, it was a strength of the marketing). I remember creating rules about watching the show, how each of us had a certain chair we were supposed to sit in to watch the show, a superstition designed to sustain the quality of the show (and given that we graduated and went to college the following year with most people getting new viewing chairs, I blame us for the drop in quality). I remember burning copies of the soundtrack and making my family listen to it repeatedly (“But ‘Honey and the Moon’ is the song Josh Schwartz said helped him understand the show!” was not a convincing enough argument to make my parents appreciate the music). I remember taking quizzes and surveys, forcing a teacher to hang a poster of the show on her well, and endlessly debating Summer and Anna. It sounds silly now, I concede, but I would argue that my experiences with the show, particularly among my age group, were not unusual, and that’s one reason why the show is worth celebrating on its tenth birthday.

            It’s important, though, not to overlook the impact the show had on popular culture as a whole. Though 2004 was the year the serial drama returned in full force, “The O.C.” helped push it back to the forefront in 2003. The show was a few years behind “Scrubs” in utilizing indie music in beautiful ways, but it perhaps did it even better than that sitcom did. Even before the dreaded arrival of The Bait Shop, the show was providing weekly showcases for music that may not have reached such a wide audience otherwise (and thus, a generation of teenagers would be left asking, “Which one is Rooney?”). “The Real Housewives” series has been a hit for Bravo, and remember which area’s housewives were featured first? The show was certainly not the first to blend comedy and drama (and certainly, other shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” were doing the same even while “The O.C.” was on, but I can think of none that did it better than “The O.C.” at its best), but the way its first season did so with confidence demonstrated the importance of balancing the two. “Gossip Girl” was coined its spiritual sequel because of the involvement of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, but I think the show’s style is much more evident in a show like “Parenthood,” where comedy, drama, and a wonderful soundtrack come together in a stylized yet emotionally real way.

            Ultimately, “The O.C.” in season one was great. If that sounds reductive or simple, then I apologize, but I can think of no better way to describe it. It was a season of television that was important, fun, thoughtful, funny, and entertaining as hell. Those traits are all on display in its pilot, which is the episode I want to spend time with today.

            For those of you who don’t remember me – and I understand this introduction is coming rather late, but I wanted to set the stage – my name is Drew, and for two and a half seasons of the show (“The Rainy Day Women” until the finale), I wrote about the show for various websites (including this blog) and even co-hosted a podcast, Editorial Newport. My name became known well enough that I was able to talk with Josh Schwartz some and that I received the first four episodes of season four on DVD several weeks before they premiered on Fox. Writing about the show meant so much to me then, and I wanted to revisit my writing about the show on the tenth anniversary of the pilot. I can’t match Alan Sepinwall’s history of the show, but I can offer a different approach.

            I struggled with how to approach this, tossing out a 1,000 word first draft that was structured differently. What I’ve decided on is something simple. Because it’s been ten years since the pilot aired, I want to list ten things that made the pilot (and by extension, season one) one of the finest hours of television I’ve ever seen. (These ten are in no particular order, as I would go legitimately crazy attempting to figure that out.)

1.    Josh Schwartz: The key to the show’s success in season one rested firmly on Josh Schwartz’s talent and skill. Only twenty-six when he started the show (his twenty-seventh birthday was day after the pilot aired), Schwartz was absolutely the right person to run this show. His age allowed him to write for the show’s target audience rather than to its target audience. He wasn’t so far removed from his characters’ ages that he forgot what it was like to be young. His experiences at USC informed his show, and he clearly drew from his needs and desires as a fish-out-of-water to help keep the series afloat. One of my favorite scenes in the pilot is one that can be easily misread: Ryan and Marissa meet for the first time at the foot of the Cohen and Cooper driveways. Marissa asks who he is, and Ryan responds with the infamous, “Whoever you want me to be.” This is not supposed to be a wonderfully romantic meet cute. What makes this scene and this response so beautiful is not Ryan’s actual words, which are horrifically cheesy. What makes this scene work is that it understands Ryan’s complete inability to deal with this situation. This is what Ryan thinks he’s supposed to say. This is his failed attempt to be cool. It’s a massive failure of a line, although one that Marissa can’t help but be amused by. While I can’t say that Josh ever used this exact line on a girl, it is very easy to imagine the pasty Rhode Islander trying to fit in with a beautiful USC crowd by giving the exact wrong comment. He wasn’t quite as skilled at leading a show through multiple seasons, and when he took somewhat of a hiatus (whether it was just a mental one or an actual hiatus, I’m not sure) in season three, the show suffered greatly. But in 2003, Josh Schwartz was the right person to bring this show to life.

2.   Ben McKenzie as Ryan Atwood: While Ryan’s place in the show changed throughout its run (season three was much more about Marissa than Ryan, for example, and we know how well that worked), it’s hard to argue that the pilot isn’t his story first and foremost. The show needed someone who could carry the show, and Ben McKenzie was the one. Certainly, McKenzie wasn’t as polished as others in the cast – we’ll talk about Adam Brody shortly – but that roughness fit Ryan, a teenager who, as Sandy puts it, “has no one and nowhere to go.” McKenzie, despite his short stature, was physically imposing enough to believably carry the fight scenes, but more importantly, he was willing to be vulnerable on screen. Watch the scene where his mom kicks him out, and look at the way McKenzie’s eyes register his hurt. This boy, who wanted to appear to be a hardened criminal in front of Sandy Cohen, just wants his family. Watch McKenzie in the final scene of the episode as he confronts an empty Atwood home. He doesn’t overplay it, but he conveys the sadness and the loss beautifully. McKenzie grew into a better actor as the show aged, but he was a wonderful pick for a lead right from the beginning.

3.   Adam Brody as Seth Cohen: In an interview with Alan Sepinwall, Josh Schwartz recalled casting Ben McKenzie and then being asked by the Fox brass, “Where’s your Jason Priestly?” The assumption Fox made was that if Ryan was going to be a brooder, then he needed a Brandon to play against his Dylan. But Schwartz, who was not a “Beverly Hills, 90210” fan anyway, did not want a Brandon. He wanted what I think most people assume is a television doppelgänger. Where Schwartz could project his feelings of being a community outcast on Ryan, he could project his feelings of being a social outcast on Seth. Seth was comfort for people like me, people who always felt a little bit off, who couldn’t quite communicate or fit in with the cool kids and who couldn’t get over an elusive crush. His quick wit and healthy sense of irony made him a role model for many of my friends. The writing for Seth in the pilot – which paints him as a sad, lonely, and yet romantic teenager – is strong, but the character is nothing without Adam Brody. The image of Seth that I most strongly recall in the pilot is the image of Seth sitting on the floor playing video games when Ryan walks in the house the morning after he’s brought home. Brody projects absolutely no confidence. He looks almost wounded just by virtue of being alive. He is absolutely fantastic. Seth’s lack of confidence comes from Brody’s confidence (those that stuck with the show know the difference since a Brody with no interest or confidence in the material is evident in seasons three and four). The scene on the Summer Breeze where he reveals his plan to sail away with Summer is heartwrenching, and Brody finds the line separating wistful and pathetic and stands on the right side of it. It’s similar to his final scene with Ryan in the episode. His hugging Ryan could feel almost pathetic, and yet there’s a sweetness that Brody brings to the role that helps establish the character. Though the pilot doesn’t spend much time with Seth outside of his relationship with Ryan, there is plenty to successfully establish him. I would suggest, too, that without Seth, the show never takes off that way it did. Seth spoke to a group that wasn’t reached with previous teen shows (except for perhaps “Freaks & Geeks,” although that was such a different show that it’s unfair to compare), and “The O.C.” was better for it.

4.   Peter Gallagher as Sandy Cohen: The heart of the show was always the Cohen family, Ryan included. When the show drifted away from that conceit in season three, it was a disaster. When they moved back toward it in season four, it was a success. And at the heart of that heart was Sandy Cohen, a passionate, goofy, east-coast transplant with a generous, giving soul. What made “The O.C.” instantly different from its predecessors was its willingness to give the adults more to do (notice that shows followed like “Gossip Girl” and “Switched at Birth” did the same, to varying degrees of success). Sandy Cohen was not Jim Walsh or Mitch Leery. His role was much more vital and much better developed. What Sandy does in the pilot by inviting Ryan into his home is ethically sketchy, but it effectively establishes his character as someone who cares about family as an idea and a construct, not just about family as blood, a distinction the show, particularly in “The My Two Dads” episode, was successful in establishing. Sandy’s an optimist, a believer, and a genuinely good person. He wants to help and do the right thing. Sandy is always around in these episodes, seemingly hanging out at the edge of each frame so that he can quickly move in the scene. He appears to interrupt Marissa and Ryan’s driveway chat. He appears to talk to the boys about the fashion show. He shows up in Ryan’s doorway at the end of the episode even though Ryan says he “can take it from here.” That’s a narrative device, sure, but I think it also works symbolically: Sandy Cohen is there, watching, helping, advising, taking care. Quickly, Sandy became the standard by which all dads, both fictional and real, would be measured. And of course, as with the previous actors, the role wouldn’t have succeeded without the right actor. Peter Gallagher has wisdom below his eyebrows, and yet there was something about his messy hair, his wide eyes, and his body language that was never threatening yet always commanding. I saw Gallagher in a recent interview talking about how he still hears about Sandy Cohen. I say that this version of Sandy established in the pilot explains why: Despite his later missteps, who can stop believing in the essential goodness of the man who brought Ryan Atwood through the gates into the Cohen home?

5.    Mischa Barton as Marissa Cooper: Look, she’s pretty enough to make me believe Ryan would fall for her instantly. She’s not a terrible actress in this episode. She looked the part and was given little enough to do overall that I didn’t hate her here. Can we move on now? Writing positive things about Marissa still makes my skin crawl, even six years after my last review of the show.

6.   Chris Carmack as Luke: Later in season one, Luke is given a personality makeover, and he becomes a very fun, loveable character. But in the pilot, he’s something different. Rather than the goofy “Which one is Rooney?” guy, he’s a pretty detestable, despicable villain. And boy was Carmack the right guy for the job. Early promotion for the show featured his face rather than Brody’s, and while I love Adam Brody, it’s not hard to see why they chose Carmack, an actual Abercrombie model. He looks like someone who will attract an audience. Carmack was in his early twenties when the show premiered, and I think he looked even older, but that worked to the character’s advantage. Through him, we could see that life was different in Orange County. He was spectacularly good looking and well built. Contrast his looks with Trey (and even Ryan), and you get a strong sense of the contrast between where Ryan came from and where he is. When Luke utters his iconic, “Welcome to the o.c., bitch!” on the beach, you get the sense that he’s as vapid as that line but that he’s also a perfect representation of everything Ryan will face as he tries to adjust to life in Newport. While softening Luke later made sense (though they did it way, way too early), keeping him more of a one-note villain in the pilot was perfect, creating sympathy for Ryan fairly easily. Further, introducing such a vile villain helps create sympathy for Seth, too. Great characters are in need of something – Luke, blessed with money, popularity, and good looks, apparently needs nothing. Who wouldn’t want to root against him?

7.   The Music: “Into Dust” and “Honey and the Moon” are the two songs I most associate with the pilot and with good reason: They not only scored their respective scenes but added depth to the themes and overall attitude of the show. I’m not particularly keen on Ryan carrying a drunk Marissa into the pool house (though that’s a more retroactive dislike given that we had to deal with similar scenes time after time), but the music helps the scene be both sad and romantic all at once. “Honey and the Moon” strikes the tone as well, lessening the melodrama while still creating a since of melancholy. The wrong song at that moment could have ruined the scene, but that song, plus the gorgeous cinematography creates a truly memorable moment in the series.

8.   Class: It’s fairly obvious symbolism, but I never thought much about the gate Ryan and Sandy pass through to get to the Cohen house. But clearly, the gates represent not merely Ryan’s passage from one side to the other and not merely Chino to Newport. Rather, these gates represent everything that Ryan previously couldn’t have. The show was never quite kind to Chino, filtering it through what became known as the “Chino Cam,” but it did so in order to illustrate the differences between where Ryan came from and where Ryan was going to be. To stretch the symbolism much further than it needs to go, at the end of the episode, Ryan is literally a have-not, his home completely abandoned. The show never fully explored the class differences in any real detail, but I appreciate the way it sets up the differences. Ryan versus Luke is not merely man versus man. It’s two different lifestyles clashing. One thing I never considered but now appreciate is the detail that the students at the party are doing cocaine. The censors were apparently a little worried about that, but it’s a crucial detail to developing this world. These are kids whose indulgences cost more than Ryan’s family combined probably has. The show also seems to pose the question: How would you respond if you were suddenly given access to millions? Obviously, Ryan doesn’t actually have his hands in the Cohen bank account, but he’s being presented with opportunity that he could have never had in Chino. Sandy is poised as someone who had the same experience, someone who swam against the Newpsie tide, but still managed to find some joy in it: When Ryan notes that public defenders don’t make enough money for nice cars, Sandy sheepishly says that he doesn’t but that his wife does. He’s figured out a way to benefit from what he’s entered because of who Kirsten is, but he hasn’t let that, at this point in the series at least (although speaking of Dr. Henry Griffin can make me ill), change who he is. Maybe one of the reasons the show – and this pilot, in particular – still resonates is because one of the themes of the pilot is still very much on our radar: Those with should reach out to those without. Being rich, the show argues, isn’t a bad thing, but through Sandy, the moral compass, the show suggests that the rich should use their resources to help.

9.   Aesthetics: Beautiful people, beautiful home, beautiful water, beautiful cars, beautiful poolhouse, beautiful sun. In short, the show looked incredible, and it offered viewers a glimpse into what might as well have been a foreign country. Even “Beverly Hills, 90210,” which showed valet parking at the high school in its pilot, was never able to establish another worldliness the way “The O.C.” was. Much of this connects back what I noted about class, but I approach this with slightly more superficiality: Who wouldn’t want to live in Newport?

10.                  Acceptance: When you’re dealing with soap opera stories and a cast of unbelievably beautiful people in an unbelievably beautiful world, you have to find some way to ground the story. People love escapism but only to a degree. There has to be an emotional reality, a universal truth somewhere. And I think that the pilot grounds itself in one of the most relatable themes known to viewers: the need for acceptance. Occasionally, I’ll ask my students about their need to be accepted. Without fail, a few hands will go up, and the students will tell me that they’re loners and rebels and that they seek validation from no one. “The O.C.” cuts through this line of nonsense. While I don’t doubt that there are people who are happier alone or with a small group, I certainly believe we all feel the need to be accepted (frankly, many people who assert their independence and lone wolf quality do so with such intensity that it’s not hard to see they want someone to validate their decisions to not need validation). The show seems to believe this, too. I’m not suggesting that the show argues for a mob mentality, and over the course of the series, those who follow others mindlessly are viciously satirized. But these characters struggle to find their footing, to find peace and comfort with and among others. This is noticeable with Seth, of course, as he wants nothing more than to be with Summer, the girl who gave his boat its name. He doesn’t want popularity or to shave his chest, but he does want to know that someone cares and loves him as he loves her. But where it’s most apparent in the pilot is Ryan. Ryan begins the episode pressured by his brother to be an accomplice to a crime. We learn in later seasons just how much Ryan wants his brother in his life and how he wants his brother to accept him and how he wants to accept his brother. There aren’t as many layers to that relationship in the pilot, but given that Ryan’s number one concern when he meets Sandy seems to be Trey, it’s obvious he wants to be close to Trey. But it’s not just about a brother; it’s about an entire family. Despite how dysfunctional his family is, Ryan wants to be a part of it. Notice the way his voice breaks when his mom tells him to get out. It’d be easy for him to rebel, to scream back at her, but he doesn’t. Instead, he wonders where he’s supposed to go. After Dawn gets rid of him, Ryan is lost, looking for a place to belong. The look on his face when he finds the empty house at the end suggests that he would love to find that place with his family. Sadly, it’s not going to happen. Thus, Sandy appears and steps up. He will accept Ryan. He knows he’s not a bad guy, not someone to run away from. He wants to protect Ryan because, as we later learn, they share a similar story. He accepts Ryan because people deserve to be accepted and loved. Ryan finding his place in this family isn’t always easy – in the pilot, there are multiple scenes where Kirsten is skeptical about Ryan, and there are moments where he does nothing to alleviate that skepticism – but it happens. And he deserves it, just like everyone deserves the chance to feel loved, appreciated, and accepted. The first season of “The O.C.” is beautifully done soap opera, but Josh Schwartz and his team of writers found true emotion in this story, and the show is better for it.

It’s hard to believe the show has been off the fair for six years. It doesn’t feel like it. I still miss it daily, watch a Chrismukkah marathon each year, and talk about at least once a week with someone. It proves my obsession, yes, but it also proves that the show was strong enough to make an impact. I tried here to itemize and quantify my feelings about the show, but I don’t think I’m doing it justice this way. To explain why “The O.C.” was so beautiful, why critics and websites are running tributes to a show that didn’t even reach 100 episodes, would require a time machine. As I mentioned earlier, “The O.C.” was an experience for those of us who would consider themselves superfans. There has yet to be something on television that I’ve experienced that way again, and I doubt there ever will be. And that’s okay. “The O.C.” has aged remarkably well, and I believe that when bloggers and critics revisit the pilot when it turns twenty, they will find that it still resonates and still holds up. If not, I hope I’m gone. I can’t imagine living in a world that doesn’t need Sandy Cohen to rescue it.

(I appreciate those who took the time to read this. I apologize for any grammatical, spelling, or logic mistakes that you may find. I apologize if I misquoted a scene or got a fact wrong. It was not intentional, and I will happily fix it. I admit that I didn’t do much proofreading here, mainly because I wanted to get this posted by August 5. I’m happy to address anything that’s particularly egregious, if you’ll just let me know. This show has always been so incredibly special to me, and writing about it was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done. It taught me a lot and introduced me to some wonderful, wonderful people. I don’t know if I’ll be returning to this blog to add more thoughts about this show or other shows, but I’m considering it. If you’re interested, stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.)