One Tree Hill

I have finished watching the first two seasons of One Tree Hill, a drama on the WB that first aired in 200x. My friend Sally cajoled me into watching it. I put it off as I felt satisfied with Gilmore Girls, Everwood, and Glee. But honestly, life in Miho was so boring, I’d run out of books to read and started the series.

The premise is interesting, i.e. Karen’s son Lucas shares a father with the town’s star basketball player. She got pregnant and dumped in high school, but Dan, who a few months later impregnated his next girlfriend and married her. Dan and his wife live in a posh home with their son Nathan, while Karen does okay with Lucas in their small house. She runs a cafe.

When Lucas joins the high school basketball team, which Dan perceives as a threat to his son’s NBA future, the drama ensues. There’s plenty of teen romance and grown up conflicts of every type. I really do like the characters, particularly Peyton, an artistic smart blonde who questions the teen social scene and most of the adults like Whitey, the crusty, wise cracking coach. In the first season I liked Haley, but in season two when she becomes a star after receiving a keyboard and playing a few songs, in addition to other flaky behavior like marrying impulsively and running off even more impulsively, she fell out of favor with me.

I think the plots are over full and often implausible. So many of these kids are on their own and their parents never show up. Really, how out of touch do you have to be to let your teenage son deal with the legal issues of obtaining custody of his baby on his own? Peyton's father is away at sea conveniently almost all the time and only visits town briefly to date Karen. Why aren’t the fighting parents whose bankruptcy turns rich girl Brooke’s life upside down, never on camera? Well, that would cost more.

Despite my complaints of too many plot points the attractive, sometimes cool characters have me coming back for more. What will season three bring?