One Tree Hill is a teen drama show that was popular in the early 2000’s, and it stars many famous faces, like Chad Michael Murray, Sophia Bush, Barbara Alyn Woods and Danneel Ackles. This is ultimately a good show and it’s very entertaining, but it’s also hard to watch a lot of the time.
One Tree Hill is a show that was a product of its time, when the popularity of teen romance dramas hit its peak twenty years ago. Sure, the writing is terrible at times, and there’s an insane amount of controversy surrounding the creator of the show, Mark Schwahn, but it’s not the worst show to ever exist.
One reason why One Tree Hill has been so popular over the years is due to its relatability in some parts, but as the show boomed in popularity, the writers would just add things for shock value that make certain episodes almost unwatchable.
Additionally, the writers are constantly contradicting what some characters were originally set up to be, and some of the best characters, who are beloved by fans, eventually become some of the most insufferable characters in the whole show. It’s like the writers knew how to create good characters, yet for some reason they decided to ruin the development of the majority of them for no reason at all.
The main protagonist at the beginning of the show is Lucas Scott, played by Chad Michael Murray, and almost immediately they make him sort of an outcast character that you want to root for. But the writers eventually turn him into an unredeemable jackass halfway through the first season, and by the time he leaves the show, it’s almost a relief that he’s finally gone.
The same thing goes with Peyton Sawyer, played by Hilarie Burton Morgan. She starts off as a tolerable person, but by the time she exits the story, I was practically cheering. The writers expect you to be rooting for truly awful people, which makes the series extremely hard to watch a lot of the time.
On the other hand, some characters really do have great development over the course of the show. Brooke Davis, played by Sophia Bush, goes from being a mean, popular-girl type to becoming single-handedly the best character in the show. Or take Nathan Scott, played by James Lafferty, who starts out as a bully and a playboy. By the end of the show, he is one of the most amazing characters in the series.
The plotlines are also one of my big issues with the show. There are often new characters added for a quick twist, and at other times there is a big plot twist that doesn’t make any sense at all. But yes, I did keep watching each episode, because apparently I just enjoy giving myself a migraine from the absolute stupidity of this show.
It’s entertaining the first few times something dumb happens. But then it gets to a point where it just feels like I’m being rage-baited, because why did they add a bunch of new characters to the story in the middle of a season? I can’t stay invested in the plot when it’s so hard to keep up with it.
Admittedly, there are so many good plotlines in this series, but the writers almost always ruin them by adding some twist that wasn’t needed, like a random kidnapping plotline that nobody asked for. And you’ll shake your head at the amount of car accidents in this show that just aren’t necessary (albeit they are all pretty funny).
What makes a show good is a storyline that brings you in and characters that pull you in deeper, and One Tree Hill does that pretty well at times. But sometimes it feels like they have lost the plot entirely and just throw things in for the thrill of it.
In the end, One Tree Hill is a good show to watch if you’re willing to ignore the fact that it has so many plot holes and bad writing.
And you should definitely stop watching this show after Season Four. Trust me: you’ll be significantly happier if you do.
