One More Squeeze

Newcastle Herald

Friday June 18, 2004

with Michael Gadd

IT was a bold move from Warner Brothers to take a bunch of unknown pretty faces, combine Dawson's Creek and Melrose Place, and call it The O.C.

NBN thought it was a good idea too at the end of last year when it bought the Australian rights to the show. But after airing three episodes, viewers didn't come to the bitch-slapping, love and deceit party, so the network cut its losses.

Since then the show has started to find an audience in the US and been given the all-clear for a second series.

So as we approach the second half of this ratings period, Southern Cross Ten has revived the drama to go up against one of Australia's most popular shows, American crime drama CSI.

The ratings figures will no doubt speak for themselves after the show's re-premiere on Tuesday at 8.30pm, but Ten will be hoping its target 16- to 35-year-old demographic will make the switch to a show that's pointed straight at them.

Not since Beverly Hills 90210, the show that made lunchboxes cool again, has there been a glitzy night-time soap for young folk.

It looks like The O.C., which stands for Orange County but is in no way like the movie of the same name starring Jack Black, is the best there is on offer.

The O.C. in California is an idyllic place packed with wealthy families and harbour-front homes. Everything and everyone seems perfect but that would be boring.

Identities and loyalties are dubious, kids live secret lives from their parents and parents do the same right back at them.

Three families, the Cohens, Coopers and Nichols, are at the centre of the drama, while heart-throb Ryan Atwood, a troubled teen from the wrong side of the tracks not acclimatised to this sunny world, adds a human element.

Life in The O.C., which is apparently not used as a nickname by locals, is not at all realistic, nor is it meant to be.

Nearly 10million US viewers tune in each week to watch the attractive cast of wealthy and tanned teens "battle" day-to-day life.

Their most obvious layer is one of decadence, with excessive booze, sex and corruption (all the stuff that makes a good TV drama), but if the show gets caught up in their kind-hearted undertones (a little too 7th Heaven apparently in parts), it could falter.

The O.C.: Tuesday, 8.30pm, Ten.

© 2004 Newcastle Herald

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