TV on DVD: One Tree Hill (The Complete Fifth Season)

Creator: Mark Schwahn
Starring: Chad Michael Murray, James Lafferty, Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy Galeotti, Sophia Bush, Paul Johansson
Original Airdate: 2008

*** (out of ****)

There are very few pieces of entertainment that I’d actually consider myself embarrassed to tell people I watch. Something where I’d choose not to share the information with anyone out of fear of public ridicule. I don’t have many “guilty pleasures”, but I’m convinced that has to do with the fact that not many movies and TV shows deserve that coveted title rather than any particularly fearless viewing habits on my part. I’m of the belief that a “guilty pleasure” should, you know, actually make you FEEL GUILTY. If that’s the criteria then nothing fits the bill better than The CW’s teen drama One Tree Hill. If you looked up “guilty pleasure” on Wikipedia there’s probably a cast photo.

That I watched even so much as a single episode of it is enough to make me feel guilty. That I watched an entire season makes my face flush with embarrassment. Just writing this review is mortifying. But you know what? In a strange way, it kind of feels great. It feels great because the show knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to be any more than that, which makes it shamefully fun. It has absolutely no sustaining nutritional value and contains all the nutritional substance of a fast food meal at Burger King, but it knows it. The series doesn’t sport great writing or performances but gets away with everything by immersing itself (and us) in pure, mindless fun. Not only that, but it raises an interesting question I’ve never considered: Is it possible for an entire television series to succeed on the strength of just one supporting character? After watching this season in its entirety I’m convinced that it can.

When One Tree Hill debuted on the now defunct WB in 2003 I only caught a little of it, but enough to know I wasn’t interested. It was clearly meant to be the replacement for the recently departed Dawson’s Creek, even going so far as to shoot in the same location of Wilmington, North Carolina. While its ratings were strong initially they eventually leveled off and it seemed for every one of its seasons it was on the cancellation bubble. When the WB and UPN merged to form the new CW in 2006 the network bosses publicly boasted it would combine the best elements of both networks. Instead, it combined the worst, snatching up their worst shows (7th Heaven) while cancelling the best (Everwood). The only good news was that they were taking UPN’s Veronica Mars, but that victory was short-lived when we discovered how badly they planned to treat it.
It was surprising when the announcement came that One Tree Hill (which never seemed to have as strong a following as the network wanted) made the cut and would be making the jump. And now ironically it stands as the only series left on The CW that truly retains the spirit of the old WB. That it’s been running on two networks for five years is impressive. That it’s better now than it ever was before is a miracle. Much of that can be attributed to a very wise decision made by the writers that has not only saved the show, but also re-energized it creatively.

It seems whenever teen dramas leave the halls of high school and the characters go onto to college the show jumps the shark. They either have to come up with contrived ways to keep the characters together despite being in different locations, or even worse, conveniently (and unrealistically) ship them all off to the same university.Taking a page out of the Dawson’s Creek series finale, season 5 of OTH flash-forwards four years into the future after the characters have graduated. The results are that the show is finally freed from the shackles of its repetitive high school storylines and the actors are given the opportunity to actually play their own age for a change. We also get a break from a tiresome love triangle that’s been dragging the series down. Most shows fizzle out when they reach their fifth seasons, but this is just hitting its stride because the time jump allows the writers to indulge in hysterically over-the-top storylines like they never have before, and if you’ve seen this show you know that’s really saying something.

Similarly, if you haven’t caught it, this DVD set is a great way to begin since everything starts with a clean slate that doesn’t necessarily require knowledge of previous seasons. But if you watch this one you may be tempted to check those earlier episodes out of curiosity to see how these colorful characters could have possibly arrived at this point. Season 5 is slow starting mainly because these characters’ new post-grad lives have to be established. I probably would have run out of patience for something like that if what the writers didn’t come up with for them wasn’t so creative…and at times downright hilarious.

In the four years since we left the residents of Tree Hill, North Carolina, all their lives are dramatically different. The most ludicrous development concerns protagonist Lucas Scott (Chad Michael Murray) who, despite barely being able to string two words together for the past four years, becomes the critically acclaimed author of the bestselling novel, "The Unkindness of Ravens," which chronicles his years at Tree Hill High School. Returning home to coach the Ravens basketball team he’s now engaged to his editor, Lindsey (Michaela McManus).

Lucas' half-brother, former star basketball player Nathan (James Lafferty) has been left paralyzed from the waist down, effectively crushing his dreams to play in the NBA. In just one example of a special touch that makes this show so entertaining, it isn’t enough that he’s angry, bitter and paralyzed, he must also be a drunk sporting a Ron Kovac-style Born On The Fourth of July beard. His marriage to high school sweetheart Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti) is crumbling because of his alcoholism, which makes caring for their now four-year old son Jamie (welcome newcomer Jackson Brundage) difficult. The presence of a psychotic nanny (Torrie DeVitto) trying to seduce him probably isn’t helping with the child care issues either.

Former high school queen bee and ex Lucas flame Brooke Davis (Sophia Bush) misses her roots in Tree Hill despite having become a world famous fashion designer in New York and running a multi-million dollar company with her mother (guest star Daphne Zuniga). Lucas’ other ex, Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton) is the least successful of the group, working as a lowly assistant to an arrogant record label executive, still dreaming of starting a label of her own. She never really got over Lucas and that will have major repercussions as the season wears on and he plans his marriage to Lindsey.

The character who probably benefits the most from the time jump is high school nerd Marvin “Mouth” McFadden (Lee Norris). Mouth had shown signs of breaking out of his geekiness in the past few seasons but this one he finally does, embarking on a steady career path as a broadcast journalist. Besides having a fling with his “cougar” boss (Kelly Collins Lintz) he’s also actually involved in a meaningful adult relationship with Brooke’s assistant, the awesomely named Millicent Huxtable (Lisa Goldstein). Norris is able to go to more mature places as an actor he wasn’t allowed to in previous seasons and Mouth gets a welcome promotion from minor supporting character to primetime player. This is Norris’ finest hour on the show and he gives this season’s second best performance. Despite the separate paths all the characters took the past few years their lives all converge this season where they always have, in Tree Hill.

Other than Lost’s Benjamin Linus, there’s no better villain on television than OTH's Dan Scott (Paul Johansson), the evil father of Lucas and Nathan. So entertaining is this character that even when I stopped watching the show I would occasionally check in just to see the havoc he was causing or the life and death situation he would find himself in at the end of each season. In the course of these five years he’s blackmailed his ex-wife, suffered a massive heart attack, been poisoned, set ablaze, elected mayor, and most memorably, murdered his own brother Keith in Season 3. Season 4 ended with him actually doing the right thing and confessing to the crime.

There lies the contradiction of this complex character and Johansson’s unmatched skill in playing him. That he teases us with the fact that deep down he may actually be a good guy who wants to do the right thing but just can’t. He's always thisclose to redemption, but then his selfish impulses kick in, causing emotional and sometimes physical destruction to himself and the family he desperately wants acceptance from.

Johansson (previously best known for his reoccurring role on the ORIGINAL Beverly Hills 90210) makes you believe that all the evil he does comes not because he’s an evil man, but because he cares…TOO MUCH. He doesn’t appear in over half the episodes in this season and the show suffers greatly from it. It seems the wait for him to get out of prison and resume his dirty work is excruciating. I noticed on the credits Johansson directed a couple of episodes early in the season in which he didn’t appear and if it’s okay with the producers, for my own amusement, I’d like to imagine he did it in character.

When Dan does get out of prison it doesn’t disappoint and fittingly his release coincides with the show’s 100th episode. Oh, he also happens to be dying of heart failure and has only a couple of months left. The relationship that develops between him and his grandson who he meets for the first time is surprising and adds another curious dimension to a character we can never pin down. As evil and pathetic as he is, because of Johansson’s performance, you almost can’t help but pity the guy.

I can’t spoil what happens to him in the season finale’s final minutes. I caught it when it aired in the spring and my drink nearly came out of my nose I was laughing so hard. You suspect what's coming, but when it does, it somehow ends up being more entertaining than it has any right to be and puts all of Dan Scott’s other epic catastrophes to shame. He just can’t catch a break. And then it occurred to me: If his character were ever written out I think I’d stop watching. He’s the driving force and glue that holds it all together. Without Johansson, the show would probably be cancelled in a second. Even if you have no interest in watching it, it's worth it just to see his work.

Of the three main actresses, I’d say the least known and most underappreciated, Galleotti, is the strongest. She just seems the most real, in a show were realism doesn’t exactly dominate. That’s why it’s a shame she has really doesn’t have all that much to work with this season, at least compared to the past few. Burton and Bush are just okay. Basically they get the job done, which is all they’ve ever needed to do throughout the series’ run. Burton, a former MTV VJ made a wisest move of her life signing on with the show considering that network chooses not to air music videos anymore. There’s much more music on this show, as they hilariously (and sometimes distractingly) try to jam every cutting edge indie tune they can into every episode. That’s especially true in this season’s finale, when they threw in so many songs it played more like an hour-long video than a television episode.

Young Jackson Brundage proves to be a valuable addition this season as Jamie because besides being just about the cutest kid ever, you never know what’s going to come out of his mouth next. The writers were smart to give this junior screen stealer as much face time as possible. Murray and Lafferty continue the solid work they’ve been doing on the show, with Lafferty asked to take Nathan to different, darker places he hasn’t been before. But no one watches OTH for the performances. If you did though, Johansson acts circles around everyone else in the cast.

It’s true that I don’t fit the demographic The CW is targeting with this series, or probably any other series on the network. You could argue that I’m neither the right age nor gender to be watching it but in reality that’s nonsense. I read a review of OTH that stated the show actually isn’t aimed at teens at all, but rather adults who missed out in having the high school experience they never got. I think there’s some truth to that.

We’re already defined and labeled enough in the real world that I refuse to let it carry over into my viewing habits. I’ll watch anything or everything so long as I enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong, I love high-brow Emmy nominated programming like Mad Men as much as anyone else but after a rough week all I want to do is shut off my brain and watch something that’s stupid, mindless fun. The CW's other anchor show, Gossip Girl is too pretentious and snotty to qualify, as it seems to think its Shakespeare rather than a teen soap.

Most of this review probably reads like I’m mocking the show, but I’m not. It does exactly what it should be doing for the genre its in. I know I should harbor a grudge that this remains on The CW’s lineup when Veronica Mars was cancelled but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Despite what the network may have mistakenly tried to convince viewers, the two shows were always in completely different genres anyway. And this is no worse than anything else that airs on Monday nights, specifically Heroes or WWE Raw. And unlike the latter, at least this show gives me a reason to check back in every week and see what happens to its characters. That's the difference between bad writing and GOOD bad writing.
Even if you hate One Tree Hill it at least deserves credit for hanging in there longer than anyone thought it would. I can’t see it continuing more than one or two seasons longer but number 6 is already off to a rip-roaring start. It’s gone from a show I occasionally watched with massive guilt to appointment television...still with massive guilt. The show has lived up to its initial promise, but just took a little longer than we thought. So, I guess you can have your critically acclaimed Emmy award worthy television. I’ll be on the couch with a bag of Doritos banging my head to Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Want To Be.” You just have to do me a favor and not tell anyone.