NFL
By: Greg Rector
The OC
I saw The OC advertised on one of my streaming channels (Crave TV) over the holiday season and I went back and watched this great series. The OC was a show my daughter and her friends were obsessed with while they were attending the University of Arkansas for those four seasons The OC was on the air. I remember a huge online campaign to keep the show on the air when the show was canceled. The series starred Peter Gallagher (Sandy) and Canada’s own Kelly Rowan (Kirsten) Cohen.
As well as the Cohen family this show launched the careers of Adrian Brody (Seth Cohen) and Ben McKenzie (Ryan Atwood) along with Rachel Bilson (Summer) and Mischa Barton (Marissa Cooper) as well Melinda Clarke (Julie Cooper) would become infamous for having an affair with her daughter’s former boyfriend Lukas something that played very well for the guys and their new obsession of MILF sex.
Melinda Clarke describes playing Julie Cooper. Clarke summarized her character as being “clearly just such a money-digging whore. To me, it’s so funny now to see The Real Housewives of Orange County because you realize it exists and that’s what Julie was. Julie was the original housewife.”
OC stood for Orange County and the Cohen family lived in Newport Beach. Sandy Cohen was a public defender who ended up bringing home with him Ryan Atwood a tough smart kid from Chino and the results were fantastic from the beginning of the series. Meanwhile, the conflict caused by Ryan’s arrival is handled masterfully by Kelly Rowan but when she decides Ryan is going to be a member of the Cohen family she will defend Ryan against the other moms, especially Julie Cooper.
From the very start of the series, we see the big boys and gals of Newport Beach who are obsessed with the latest fashions and trends of the day. We also see how Ryan is affected by being in this new environment especially when he meets Marissa Cooper who lives right next door.
Seeing the two young people fall in love was magical and then you have Seth Cohen and his obsession with Summer Roberts and how they fall in love finally for Seth and somewhat reluctantly for Summer. The plight Seth Cohen lives his life is hilariously funny to watch. Once he has a new brother his tendency to keep to himself is gone and how he ends up having two girls going after his attention is what makes The OC fun to watch.
It was a pleasant change of pace since everything Ryan touched turned violent and often his inability to speak for himself was frustrating to watch. Marissa Cooper was also much harder to watch as we saw her struggle with drug addiction and her family life falling apart.
I also recall the issues Mischa Barton dealt with in her own life outside of being on TV’s hottest new show Barton dealt with being over-sexualized and in her world, she was being told to sleep with Leonardo DiCaprio and how she should do nude work to “enhance” her acting career. No one deserves that type of treatment and we all know of the troubles it led to for Mischa Barton. This led to Mischa Barton’s character being killed off the program to end season three. Josh Schwartz the creator of The OC said this of Mischa Barton “Mischa was one of the young women stalked by photographers and treated unkindly by online bloggers. Fame hit in a certain way that would have been very hard for anyone to predict”.
I was much like Seth Cohen I loved Summer Roberts from the moment I saw Rachel Bilson this show had me hooked. So cute and her energy was just so positive compared to what was happening with Ryan and Marissa.
The OC had me hooked and it was a pleasure to revisit a program that my late daughter got her old dad to watch and we would discuss the characters endlessly when we would talk on the phone or even when she was back home for a visit. I’m going to write another article detailing the end of the series that so many of us watched in the early 2000s The OC.
Much like the earlier red tag of a possible One Tree Hill reboot The OC needs to see the now-adult Ryan Seth Summer and Taylor Townsend. I want to know where they are today.
This show was GREAT! Taylor Townsend was fantastic
Absolutely right!!