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It looked like a standard
teen soap on the outside, but once you scratched the surface of the
glittery, sun-dappled Fox drama The O.C., you'd find underneath
a number of surprisingly well-developed characters, fun plots that
played around with their soap conventions, and some of the wittiest
dialogue this side of an Aaron Sorkin show. The setup was pure high
concept: hunky, brooding Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie) was a good kid from
Chino starting to go bad, and thanks to the interference of his
lawyer, Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), finds himself whisked away from
the wrong side of the tracks to the mansions and manicured lawns of
Orange County. Soon, Ryan finds himself living in the Cohens' pool
house, involved with troubled rich girl Marissa (Mischa Barton), and
bristling against the societal confines of his new home, as the people
may be richer but they're just as screwed up as anyone else. Still,
somehow, he manages to bring out the humanity of the superficial
people around him and they become all the better for knowing him. |
