August 4, 2003

The Boston Globe

O.C.' bubbles with soapy fare

By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff, 8/4/2003

Generally speaking, people who love nighttime soaps are missing the TV-shame gene, especially when it comes to the Emmyless likes of "Melrose Place" and "Dawson's Creek," shows whose titles have probably never been uttered at an HBO pitch meeting. Openly and affectionately, soap fans embrace the genre's blow-dried villains, its wooden heroes, its in-your-face affluence, and its shopworn plotting, which ranges from backstabbing best friends to backstabbing spouses.

These people, and I am one of them, will find something to like in "The O.C.," a new nighttime soap on which all the female characters look like emigres from "Joe Millionaire." The Fox series, which premieres tonight at 9 on WFXT-TV (Channel 25), is a sultry, melodramatic fantasy in which beautiful young people continue to look beautiful and young as they face down fierce high school cliques, duplicitous parents, and a brattier-than-thou beach hunk named Luke who's like the evil twin of Gidget's Moon Doggie. Set amid the dramatic ocean vistas of Southern California's Orange County, or the O.C., the show is a cone of cotton candy.

The setup of "The O.C." reveals shades of 1955's "Rebel Without a Cause," the iconic movie of teen alienation. Sixteen-year-old Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie) is an unloved stray pup who is saved from an alcoholic mother and foster care by a liberal public defender named Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher). Sandy brings the handsome, laconic Ryan home to his Newport Beach mansion and sets him up in the pool house. Suddenly surrounded by trust-fund kids driving Beemers, Ryan is dumbfounded, his street instinct useless in the gated, Armani-clad jungle that is rich white America. And his confusion heightens when he falls for next-door neighbor Marissa (Mischa Barton), who is attracted but afraid to let go of her snobby friends.

Ryan is most at home with Sandy's son, Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), an overly verbal nerd who feels out of place amid what he calls "the pod people" of Orange County. The two fulfill each other's needs, with Ryan as the strong, silent protector and Seth as the ironist and modern wise man. They are outsiders together at the frequent O.C. beach-house parties, the infamous orgies of beer, bongs, cocaine, and hot-tub action rivaling that of MTV's "The Real World."

"Welcome to the dark side," Seth says to Ryan as they enter a local fashion show.

As the season progresses, Ryan, Seth, and Marissa form a slowly turning triangle along the lines of the Pacey-Joey-Dawson constellation from "Dawson's Creek." And as they become close, they team up against their peers and protect themselves from the adults, who struggle with fidelity as well as financial stability. Sandy is a mensch, but the other parents on the show are less able and willing to try to bridge the generation gap.

Brody is instantly likable as Seth, the self-conscious teen who has a crush on one of the cruelest girls in his class. Despite his sometimes savage honesty, he's a dreamer. And Barton -- she was Jessie's girlfriend on "Once and Again" -- does a nice job with Marissa's torn-between-two-worlds angst. They are more clearly defined than McKenzie's Ryan, who doesn't seem to have many clear personality traits. McKenzie needs to let a little brooding and torment shake up his still surface -- he's at the center of a shameless melodrama, after all. He needs to get in touch with his inner James Dean.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.