Yesterday The Awl published a really cool article titled “What Made The O.C. Great, Bitch,” which looked back on the four season run of the fast-burning Fox teen soap. I read it because I have a lot of free time and will read anything with The O.C. in the title, and if you were a fan of the show when it debuted 10 years ago (WHAT), or if you came to it later via DVDs or Netflix, I recommend checking it out. A little light on the Oliver-bashing for my taste, but I’m someone who could watch a GIF of him getting eaten by a shark for literally days, so take that with a grain of salt.
But I digress. Anyway, here is one particular paragraph from the article that blew my brain to smithereens.
The show’s fanbase watched so attentively that, years later, IMDB still lists continuity errors like “When Haley is seen at the club dancing, her hair is curled. When she’s leaving the club her hair is straightened” (Season 1, Episode 22, “The L.A.”). At UC Berkeley, Peter Gallagher’s role on the show has been immortalized by the Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship, which supports law students working in the Orange County public defender’s office. This is something that exists in real life.
I have no idea how I didn’t know about this. And it gets better: according to this 2006 history of the fellowship, it “is commonly called ‘The Sandy’ or ‘Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship for Lawyers Who Dare to Dream,’” and is funded in part by “an annual O.C. Totally Awesome Prom fundraising event,” which I would like to know more about no later than this very moment, if possible. The whole thing is preposterously silly from top-to-bottom, and I would eat it for dinner if I could.
As far as I can tell, there is only one potential downside here: I don’t know if it still exists. I did some extensive research (five minutes of Googling), and I haven’t found anything more recent than 2006. I hope it hasn’t withered away, though, if only because the concept of some confused foreign student winning the fellowship in, like, 2050 and mumbling “Who the f-ck is Sandy Cohen?” is hilarious to me. It’s the little things, you know?
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Danger, I expect you to get a lot of hate about the OC but holy cats do I still think it’s underrated. The first season burned through way too much material but I still think the first, second, and fourth season are some of the best network television at the time. The third season is so bad I think it gave me cancer though.
Season 1 was great, even with Oliver. The rest of the series was a total crapshoot.
Also, a brief story that I love to tell:
My senior year of high school was when the OC premiered and I did not care about trying to impress anyone at that point. I was sitting in my biology class bopping my head to Transatlanticism during our study quarter (you had four 25 minute quarters during fourth period, two were for class, one was for lunch, one was for study) and a girl asked what I was listening to and I told her. “Seth LOVES Death Cab!” she gushed. I was confused and when I asked, “Seth Who?” she told me, “Seth Cohen, on the OC!” I grumbled, put my headphones away, and began reading the latest issue of Ultimate Spiderman. “Seth loves comics!” I grumbled again.
If you had a Seth Cohen or John Dorian who liked sports then it’s pretty much me.
I will defend season 4 until the day I day.
Because it was great?
You should probably go to the comments of that article then. The author said everything after season two was “abysmal”. Sacrilege commentary if you ask me
Taylor Townsend is 30000000000000000x better than Marissa Cooper.
I still can’t believe that Mischa Barton was seen as the big star from the OC. She was by FAR the worst actress on the show.
Funny thing is I didn’t really notice how bad she was at the time. Watching it over again years later and I often wince at some of her deliveries.
I totally agree, season 4 was great; We were introduced to new characters (Bullit, Frank Atwood, Che) and it felt like the show was back to itself after the disaster that was season 3. The season 4 christmakuh episode is one of my favorites in the series.
I read in 2005 (or there abouts) that someone dies in someone else’s arms while “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” played on the radio in The OC and from then on I could not take it seriously enough to even consider watching it. I may try again to at least watch the first season again because I respect DG’s opinion on things.
Nah, man. Unless there’s another death I’m not remembering, the only song in that scene is Imogen Heap covering Hallelujah.
I googled it because I was curious if I misremembered or read a parody and didn’t realize it and I found this:
[www.tv.com]
Huh. Welp, here it is. [youtu.be]
Summer > Anna.
Here’s another reason why season 4 is great…Summer becomes a human being with like, thoughts and ambitions.
“….an annual O.C. Totally Awesome Prom fundraising event,”
I was going to say that all Uproxx readers should chip in to get Mischa Barton to attend this as your date, DG. But, I’m pretty sure she’s actually free (and FREE) anytime you give her a call.
Also, I Julie Cooper > all other female characters on The O.C.
Kirsten Cohen > All women on television ever.