‘The O.C.’ was a teen fable of fun, sun, and affluenza

Arts admin August 1, 2026 0 Comments

‘The O.C.’ was a teen fable of fun, sun, and affluenza

This week in Autopilot, a Globe series on great first television episodes:

“The O.C.”

Episode: Premiere

Pilot air date: Aug. 5, 2003, Fox

Stream it on: Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video

The late 1990s and early 2000s were awash with teen series, mostly on The WB, UPN, and Fox, some quite good, some not so much. “The O.C.” was one of the good ones, a witty, underdog fish-out-of-water nighttime youth drama with a heart and a brain, and it was sharp right out of the gate.

It’s a fable of sorts: A smart but rough-around-the-edges teen (Ben McKenzie’s Ryan Atwood) from working-class Chino steals a car with his knucklehead older brother and gets kicked out of the house by his alcoholic mother. He’s taken in by his public defender (Peter Gallagher’s Sandy Cohen) and his family in upscale Newport Beach, where things are … different. The girls, including Mischa Barton’s Marissa Cooper and Rachel Bilson’s Summer Roberts, hold charity fashion shows featuring the wares of Vera Wang and Manolo Blahnik. The guys drive high-end SUVs. The unsupervised beach parties come with booze, drugs, and sex. At one such party in the pilot, the willowy Marissa asks Ryan what he thinks of Newport Beach. “I think I could get into a lot less trouble where I’m from,” he replies. She readily agrees. In some ways, the wrong side of the tracks is safer.

“The O.C.” had a confectionary quality from the start, defined by beautiful people, beachy locales, and pop tunes, by the likes of Phantom Planet and Black Eyed Peas, guaranteed to take you back to 2003. Doug Liman, coming off a run that included “Swingers,” “Go,” and “The Bourne Identity,” directed the pilot with slick high energy. But there’s more going on here than fun in the sun. “The O.C” is bathed in affluenza, the sickness of the spirit that accompanies the obsession with material comfort. The show could be accused of having its cake and eating it too, but it walks that line deftly. Gallagher’s Sandy and his wife, Kirsten (Kelly Rowan), are living proof that not all rich people are bad, but next door, Marissa’s dad, Jimmy (Tate Donovan), is falling apart as the SEC investigates his dirty financial dealings.

Meanwhile, Adam Brody walks away with the pilot and arguably the series as Seth, Sandy and Kirsten’s soulful, socially awkward teen son. Seth can’t even look at Summer, the girl of his dreams, but he welcomes Ryan with open (if jittery) arms. Seth doesn’t really trust the conspicuous wealth around him, and as the show’s moral compass, he implicitly suggests we shouldn’t, either. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the trappings.