What Was The Best ‘Teen TV Show’ Of The 00's?
The 2000’s were a golden age for teen/tween television. Let’s go through our favourites as we look to crown the GOAT of the decade.
If I asked you to pick your favourite Teen Television show of the past decade, how long would it take for you to come up with a concrete answer? For most people, I assume it would only take somewhere between 20–30 seconds.
A lot of girls who grew up with a single mother would probably lean towards Gilmore Girls, citing all the relatable milestone moments throughout a teenage girl’s life and how it helped them get through those same moments. Dorky folks (a term I use endearingly) may lean towards a show like Freaks and Geeks, but then realize that it wasn’t from last decade and actually aired in 1999, before changing their answer to Smallville or something dumb instead (side note, did you know Smallville lasted 10 seasons? That’s a whole lot of Tom Welling, if you kept watching after the first few seasons, God bless you).
Whatever your answer may be, my point is that we all have one.
TV shows that centred around the lives of confused, dramatic teenagers are so perfect and necessary during the years of your life where you are acting mischievous and discovering all these little previously unknown secrets about the world. These shows, ones like Gilmore Girls and The OC and Freaks and Geeks and 90210, told us teenagers that it was ok to fuck up every once in a while. They were generally pretty exciting, and they included a lot of promiscuity, which is something everyone loves to gossip about whether it’s fictional promiscuity or not.
But really, I don’t want to talk about why these Teen Television shows were important from the perspective of someone who once looked to TV as a means for helping to deal with the problems of adolescence. I want to look at these Teen Television shows from the 2000’s and figure out which one was the best, and which one has the most staying power. I want to know which of these shows I could marathon tonight, while still having the same effects on me that they did 10 years ago.
To do this, I first had to determine which shows would be included in this battle of the fittest, and which would be left out of the conversation.
To make it easy, I narrowed the list down to three shows that I’m sure many people would agree with. This did not take me very long. The three shows with which we will do a very intense comparison of are: Friday Night Lights, The OC, and One Tree Hill.
They will be judged out of 10, in five very important categories that go into making an especially great Teen Television show: Heartbreaking moments, cheesiness factor (in a good way), strength of the supportive adult characters, the intensity of the love triangles/squares/pentagons, and of course, the strength of the teenage characters the shows revolved around.
For those of you that won’t get to see your favourite Teen Television show do battle, I say to you this: I’m sorry, but also I’m not that sorry because sometimes you just gotta go with your gut, and my gut was saying these shows belonged.
Here, at least, are some Honorable Mentions before we dive in to this.
Honourable Mentions
Freaks and Geeks: Why couldn’t you have just come out in 2000, Freaks and Geeks? You could have been so culturally important in the 00’s, but maybe it’s better this way. It would’ve been weird had Seth Rogen and his crew not gotten some recognition before Y2K. Also, if you haven’t yet watched this show, shutdown your entire life after reading this and watch the entire thing. We all should get to experience as much of this Seth Rogen as possible. (Was cancelled after its first season as well, so shouldn’t take you that long either.)
Gilmore Girls: I have not seen a whole lot of Gilmore Girls. Despite this, I know that it was a very popular show amongst the general teenage girl population. Unfortunately, it was not quite as popular amongst the teenage boy population. And that is why it will remain in the Honorable Mentions section. Sorry to Alexis Bledel. You were a real one.
Veronica Mars: The problem with Veronica Mars, unfortunately, is that it just never quite caught on like some of the other shows mentioned here. It had more of a “cult” following than an “entire high-school” following, which is more of what we’re looking for.
Smallville: Haha, just kidding. Smallville never had a chance. Hate to bring up Tom Welling again, but is he the best Superman of our generation? I would gladly take him over Brandon Routh or Henry Cavill. Is there some sort of way we can get a petition going to have Cavill replaced with Welling in the new Justice League movie?
The Categories
Heartbreaking Moments
One of the toughest moments on TV I have ever had to watch was when they killed off Marissa in The OC. I was watching with my sister, and I remember exactly what happened as the events began to unfold. My sister and I were maybe 14 and 11, respectively, at the time. We had heard all the rumours that she would not be returning, but our young selves had no time for that bullshit. How could they kill her off? There was no way. She was vital. She was the self-destructive member of the group who everyone loved to question, but also root for.
So anyway, they got her crazy ex-boyfriend to crash her van off a fucking hill as she was trying to leave the country. She was such trouble, that they literally could not have just let her leave. They had to murder her instead. It was cold-blooded. It was some LeBron in game 7 type shit. They swatted her life away like LeBron swatting Andre Igoudala’s layup attempt.
It was so heartbreaking that my sister began to cry uncontrollably and her body started to shake so hard that I thought maybe she was dying too. It was a pretty scary moment for me, seeing Marissa die while also not knowing whether or not some sort of sadness-demon was beginning to possess my sister. It could very well have been a very scaring three minute period of my life, but here I am.
Other heartbreaking moments from The OC include, in no specific order: Ryan leaving at the end of season one to raise his child, Seth and Summer breaking up, Kirsten dealing with the death of her father, Julie Cooper dealing with her poorness, the final montage scene, Trey getting shot, and Alex/Anna/Luke all leaving at various different points. There were a lot of them.
One Tree Hill also was full of sad moments. There was that time Keith died, and also when Jimmy died, which were both very hard realities to swallow. There was that time Peyton got kidnapped and Lucas dramatically saved her, the time that crazy nanny kidnapped Jamie and left Haley super-stressed out (makes sense), and also that time the limo crashed off a motherfuckin’ bridge after Nathan and Haley’s wedding. The thing that OTH suffered from, however, was just how soapy all these moments started to become after they just kept happening. At a certain point, I became desensitized.
Friday Night Lights somehow takes the cake though. The saddest moment on television I can ever remember is this scene between Matt Saracen and Coach Taylor in season two:
During this moment, Saracen (otherwise known as 7, otherwise known as the easiest to sympathize with TV character maybe of all time) has reached a point where he thinks there is nothing left. He is drunk, desperate, and completely alone. And he has the perfect person there in Coach Taylor to push him to his breaking point, before consoling him. For any teenager with parent issues, commitment issues, intimacy issues, whatever, this shit struck hard. If you didn’t start crying the first time you saw this, you should probably go to the doctor’s office so they can check to see whether or not you actually have a heart.
Other FNL heartbreaking moments include: Jason Street breaking his spine, Lyla cheating on Street with Tim, Matt and Julie breaking up, Smash being discovered using steroids by his mother, Landry killing someone for Tyra, Vince Howard getting out of the car when him and his friends were about to get revenge, Tim Riggins becoming a father figure for his next-door neighbour, and fuck wow there really were so many of them but I’ll just stop now because my soul is starting to hurt.
One Tree Hill: 6.5
The OC: 8
Friday Night Lights: 9
Cheesiness Factor
This category might be a little confusing. When I say cheesiness, I do not mean it in a bad way. A very key aspect of any Teen Television show is how much an audience can watch [insert show] and think, “haha, that’s so cheesy, I love it.” They are the very stupid moments that allowed us to sit back and let out a relaxed sigh.
There were not many of these moments during the running for FNL. It was a show that took itself very seriously, perhaps more seriously than any other Teen Television show ever. For that reason, it loses points.
The OC and OTH though? They were entirely different breeds of cheesy/corniness. Just think of this: There is a scene in The OC where Seth is hanging from a goddam roof wearing a Spider-Man mask, and Summer (who has just left Zach, who I should add was definitely the perfect boyfriend) walks up to him in the pouring rain, lowers the Spidey mask, and plants one of the most romantic/cheesy TV kisses of all time. Surely when the writers scripted this moment, there was a very large presence in their brains being like, “This is super cheesy, and it’s going to make people have these super dumb smiles because of all the cheesiness.”
With OTH, for starters, how about that theme song? Just on it’s own, the theme song has a higher cheesiness factor than anything that ever happened in all of Friday Night Lights.
There are really too many moments to list in the show. The whole thing was basically just a big block of brie, or extra-old aged cheddar or some shit. Instead, for full cheese effect, here is a compilation of Lucas and Peyton’s best moments. Prepare to be amazed as you relive their journey through the love tunnel.
Friday Night Lights: 5
The OC: 8
One Tree Hill: 9
Strength Of Supportive Adult Characters
Ok, it’s time to have a very serious discussion here, within the very serious discussion that we’re already having. If you had to pick one father figure/role model for the rest of your life, who would you pick: Sandy Cohen from The OC, or Coach Taylor from FNL?
Both characters encapsulated everything about a good dad. They were both incredibly intelligent, with a good amount of smartass-wit to balance out their tough demeanors. Both would do anything asked of them. Both would rescue their child from any situation they could ever be in. Both were consistently good husbands, complete rocks. Both were successful, and both had smiles of gold. No one could put together a cream cheese bagel quite like Sandy, and coach Taylor was a pretty competent barbecuer as well.
But there are a couple of things that separate Coach T from Sandy. The first, obviously, is the supporting spouse (SS). Miss Taylor was a fucking complete gem, man. She is in my top five fictional wives of all time, for sure. She was tough as nails, and had a massive ability to care for other people, even ones she didn’t know very well.
Kirsten Cohen on the other hand, had her bad moments. In particular, there was her alcoholic phase, which became increasingly hard to watch. She loved that vodka like I love me some Krispy Kremes, which is saying a lot.
The other thing though, and the thing that I contemplated for a long while, is who I would rather receive advice from at any given time. Don’t get me wrong: Sandy Cohen is very capable of giving the right advice, 100% of the time. I would just rather hear the advice coming from Coach T. There is something so incredibly serious about him, I just feel like he could never steer me in the wrong direction. This round goes to FNL.
Side Note — This was probably OTH’s weakest category. Karen (Lucas’s mom) was pretty legit, and so was Keith (RIP). But the parent on the show who got by far the most screen time was Dan Scott, who very well should have just been painted red with a big pointy tail for the entire show. In other words, he was the devil.
Another side note — Shouts to Julie Cooper, whose presence really made me think for a second that maybe The OC actually did have a better cast of parents than FNL. Almost.
One Tree Hill: 5
The OC: 8
Friday Night Lights: 9
Intensity Of Love Triangles/Squares/Pentagons
Ok, each of these shows really had a lot going on in terms of fucked up love situations. Going over each breakup/makeup/romance could be a book in its own right (look out, release date summer 2020). So let’s narrow it down a bit, and look at the most intriguing or devastating love triangle from each show, respectively.
The OC could have any number of love combinations analyzed. I’m going to stay away from the debacle that was Ryan and Marissa, because their relationship felt like how I would imagine sticking my hand into a bucket of knives would feel.
Instead, let’s look at the triangle that was Seth-Summer-Zach. After leaving Newport at the end of season one, Summer started on with the impeccably handsome and charming Zach, who was essentially a different version of Seth, but one that played water polo and could beat people up if the situation arose.
Summer dated Zach for a long-ass time. Too long. The intrigue in the relationship was not the drama that surrounded it, because there wasn’t as much as some other romances (see, Volchock/Ryan/Marissa). Rather, the intrigue rests in the fact that Zach posed a bigger threat to true love than any other character ever had on The OC, save for maybe Theresa, who almost had Ryan’s child.
The love pentagon that was poppin’ off during the first season of OTH also was quite the spectacle. Prepare yourself for the recap I am about to give. Nathan Scott was dating Peyton as the show started to unfold. Nathan also had made a sex tape with Brooke, Peyton’s best friend, although that was something that supposedly occurred before the show started. Peyton, after breaking up with Nathan (finally, Nathan was a douche for a long time) started to see Lucas Scott, who is Nathan’s half-brother. Oh, and for a long time Lucas couldn’t decide between Peyton or Brooke. So that’s two brothers, who both had relationships with the same two girls. So we have a square. But then you add into the fold Nathan’s eventual wife, Haley, who also was Lucas’s best friend for the entire show. So yeah, are you still following? I don’t even know if I am, it was THAT complicated. Let’s move on.
Friday Night Lights didn’t see much in terms of a crazy love triangle. No, there was only a star running back (Tim Riggins, who will forever be a hero to me and everyone in the world, really) who fell in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. Oh, and the best friend, Jason Street, was a quarterback who had just broken his spine. Oi vey. What is it with the kids on these shows? Morals do not live inside the world of television, apparently.
The OC: 6.5
Friday Night Lights: 8
One Tree Hill: 9
Strength Of Teenage Characters
Ah, finally. The most important category of them all. Which teenage characters did we relate to most? Which would we want as members of our cliques? Which would we be crushing on in high school, which would we want to have our backs, and which would we want to talk to the morning after losing our virginities???
It is the hardest to quantify, because every single one of these kids from these shows were people you could love. Nathan and Brooke may have been assholes here and there, but they progressed dramatically as individuals. They were nuanced and multi-dimensional.
Friday Night Lights may have had a revolving door of teenage characters, but that doesn’t mean they should be slighted for it. I mean seriously, how the fuck could you not love both Matt Saracen and Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan??? Come on!!!!)? How could you not love Tyra and Becky? And how could you not love Timmy Riggins. I would give my left arm for Tim Riggins to be my dad, my third brother, or even just an uncle. Whatever.
The OC also had a perfect gang. There was a prom queen who ended up having a heart of gold, an emo geek with sarcasm that could match Chandler Bing, a thug with the potential for anything who was impossible not to root for, and an emotionally unstable girl who everyone just kept hoping would get better.
All these kids were winners, even when they were massively fucking up. What I’m about to do feels like a cop out, but oh well.
One Tree Hill: 10
The OC: 10
Friday Night Lights: 10
Final Scores
One Tree Hill: 39.5
The OC: 40.5
Friday Night Lights: 41
So there, 3,000 words later, we have the answer to what is probably the most important question of the 2000's. Friday Night Lights has the most staying power, with The OC just barely behind it. For One Tree Hill fans,we all knew that show wasn’t quite up to par [edit: our EIC Matt Amha severely disagrees]. But it came close, and it probably fought for longer than it should have.
Now, I’m going to do myself a favour and go watch the entire first season of The OC for the hundredth time, and then in a couple weeks I’ll re-watch the entire FNL series. Texas forever. I miss you 2000’s.
