California, Here We Come

From the title of this post, you may be under the impression that I'm about to embark on an exciting trip to America. Unfortunately this is not the case, but on the upside, I have rekindled my love for the OC. When I was on a recent work experience placement and therefore facing the shocking hurdle of waking up before eight, I encountered many things I'd forgotten about since those dark days in third year when I had to make it into uni for nine o'clock - the morning dew on the grass, the chorus of birds singing...and the reruns of season two on Really. I already had this and season three on DVD, but they were on a shelf in my room gathering dust after a few years of neglect. Catching snippets of it on TV reminded me how much I love it and so this prompted me to buy the boxsets of one and four. You can pick them up pretty cheaply now so there was no excuse.

Over the past month or so, I've been working my way through (standard episode with breakfast) and I'm about halfway into season four now. Watching them in quick succession as opposed to having to wait an excruciatingly long week for the next episode has given me a bit of a different view to when I watched it on TV the first time round. You pick up on some of the nuances which make it so good - running jokes about how Ryan and Marissa definitely aren't funny and 'salting' each others' 'games', the writers' use of particular pieces of music to signal certain things (Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek for example - if you hear the opening lines of 'wheeeeere are we...what the heeeeell is goooooing on?' you know someone is about to be injured/die) and how the characters develop over the four series.

I maintain that season one will always be the best. Even though I find Marissa really annoying, and Ryan is stuck in his slightly irritating tough guy image, it's the original and therefore a classic. You're introduced to the Seth/Summer relationship, it has some engaging extra cast members (Anna, Oliver Trask) and it's the first time that you get an insight into how much of an incredible father Sandy would be. Literally, anything that goes wrong, Sandy's response is 'I just wish you'd talked to me'. You know how on Mean Girls they say that Gretchen's hair is so big because it's full of secrets? My theory is that there is a reason for Sandy's extraordinarily large eyebrows - the bushiness conceals his abundance of morals.

Season two is also up there, a highlight being the mall episode. For me, that particular one has an 80s teen movie feel to it - it's very Ferris Bueller, which is always a good thing. I didn't find Lindsay that bad a character the second time round, and I always liked Zach and Alex, but my favourite addition to the cast was Ryan's brother Trey (who incidentally recently starred in Prometheus...not bad for an ex-con). Ryan's background means that it's easy for the writers to introduce his family members into the Newpsie bubble and have them wreak havoc. In fact, Trey caused so much trouble that it led to what I think is the best ending of any of the seasons. I won't give it away, but let's just say it went off with a 'bang'. Ok maybe that has given it away slightly...my bad.

In my opinion, the OC changes quite a lot in season three, and this initially made me resent it slightly. Marissa has changed schools and so you get another influx of new characters who I didn't particularly take to, but on the other hand, you are also introduced to Taylor Townsend who I think is a brilliant character (and it seems the writers did too as she returns permanently in the next season). Again, fast forward to the end and there is another dramatic finish involving a death. In my opinion, the death of this particular character should mean that season four is improved (harsh but true), although I'm not sure it does after all.

In season four, it seems to move from being a drama series with comedic aspects to laughable in a not so good way. The story lines become ridiculously far-fetched and this is clear from the outset...Ryan has resorted to cage-fighting on his nights off, as you do. It's all a bit weird. Take for example the episode where Ryan and Taylor fall off a ladder and into a coma, where they enter a parallel universe in which neither of them exist. Or the episode where Che (who grew on me so much the second time round, genuine comedic genius) takes Seth on a psychological journey into the woods so that he can discover his 'spirit animal'. This is the episode I just finished watching, and for all it's brilliant, it seems pretty incongruous with the feel of seasons one and two. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's a lot worse than them, it's just...different.

What I like about the OC is that for all it is a bit of light relief - a bit of a trashy teen drama - it's genuinely really funny with mostly engaging, dramatic story lines. The writing does seem to change tack over time, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing, it just means that for me, the experience of watching seasons one and two, and to an extent three, is different to that of watching the fourth. Anyway, this is all a bit of a moot point as everyone knows the real reason why anyone watches it is for Seth and his 'Coheny Cohenisms' (see below). Get me an invite to Chrismukkah at the Cohen household and I would be a very happy lady.