When Thursday
comes around, do you miss your friends?
Well, cheer up. They'll be there
for you starting Nov. 4. Not the friends of "Friends,"
who are, like, soooo first-half-of-2004, but the friends of "The
O.C." - or, as Fox calls it, with a sly poke at an old NBC
catch-phrase, "OCTV."
Unlike most of the shows
Fox launched this summer, which ranged from the mediocre ("North
Shore," "The Casino") to the unwatchable ("Quintuplets,"
"Method & Red"), this series about the lives
of a Southern California family and their neighbors started
out hot in its August 2003 debut and has just gotten hotter.
A couple of years ago, it would have seemed
silly for the network to pin its Thursday-night hopes on
a drama running opposite CBS' "Survivor" and a
pair of NBC comedies, one of which, "Joey," is
a spinoff of you-know-what.
But "Joey" has proved
to be something less than must-see TV, and the ninth edition of
"Survivor" is showing its age.
So "O.C." creator Josh
Schwartz is optimistic about the drama's move from Wednesday to
Thursday, which will happen when the World Series is over.
"Wednesday night was really
competitive for us in terms of (ABC's) 'The Bachelor' and (NBC's)
'The West Wing,' " Schwartz told TV critics a few months ago
at a session to promote the series. "We have our fan base,
and I think we're going to be able to build on that audience and
expand."
Although
Fox originally sold the show as a teens-on-the-beach drama - think
"Dawson's Creek, 90210" - its appeal has cut across age
groups.
That's
at least partly because it's not the kind of series where "teenagers
are geniuses, and the world would be a better place if it weren't
for those pesky adults," said Peter Gallagher, who plays Sandy
Cohen, father to one young man, Seth (Adam Brody), and mentor to another,
Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie).
At first,
the show focused primarily on Ryan, a kid from the wrong side of the
tracks who is taken in by do-gooder lawyer Sandy and his wife, Kirsten
(Kelly Rowan), a businesswoman who pays the mortgage on the family's
outrageously luxurious house.
But
later in the first season, other characters began competing for attention,
including the likable, loquacious and slightly nerdy Seth.
"I
was at a golf course," Brody recounted, "and 15 little Seth
Cohens came up to me. They're like 16, and they all had, you know,
their little indie rock (look). And they were, like, 'Seth Cohen's
our hero!' "
Ice
princess Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson) has also come into her own.
Known
at first for such pronouncements as "Eeeeew," she became
softer and more sensitive when she began to return the attention of
the love-struck Seth.
"Watching
Summer's cold, cold heart melt in front of Seth was really fun,"
Schwartz said.
Then there's Julie (Melinda Clarke), the neighbor
who went from merely grasping to hissable after marrying, of all
people, Kirsten's rich father, Caleb (Alan Dale).
At a party recently, Clarke confided with a grin,
a young man thanked her, saying, "Because of you, I'm dating
my best friend's mother."
The series' best running joke is "The Valley,"
a fictional soap opera that the characters watch and which, not
coincidentally, bears a certain resemblance to "The O.C."
itself.
"Who knows?" said Schwartz. "One
day, maybe 'The Valley' will be a spinoff."
He was joking, of course. But stranger things have
happened.
