O.C. writers admit they made Seth a stoner to cover for how horribly bored Adam Brody was
"At least if we can write that he’s stoned, then we’re not trying to write around it," creator Josh Schwartz said of Brody's late-season "lethargy"
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In one of the most grimly hilarious admissions we’ve ever seen crop up in an oral history of a once-beloved TV drama, the writers of The O.C. have now admitted that they made Adam Brody’s character Seth Cohen a stoner in the show’s later seasons in order to cover up for how phenomenally bored Brody had become of starring in The O.C.. “At least if we can write that he’s stoned, then we’re not trying to write around it,” series creator Josh Schwartz says in a new book about the show, quoted in TooFab this week. “That’s where ‘Kaitlin gets Seth hooked on pot’ took root.”
Said admission comes courtesy of Alan Sepinwall’s new Welcome To The O.C.: An Oral History, which tracks the rise, and then what Adam Brody would now probably politely refer to as the decline, of the Fox hit. He was, by his own admission, a little more blunt about his lack of enthusiasm for the series past its first season at the time, saying in the history that “I think I very much let my distaste for the later episodes be known. I didn’t mask that at all, and I’m sure I openly mocked it a bit. So I’m not proud of that.” (Brody does state that “I was polite to everyone. I liked the directors, and the crew and I got on really well and I didn’t keep people waiting”… but also cops to refusing to read scripts for any scenes he wasn’t personally in, calling the behavior unprofessional.)
All of which, apparently, led Schwartz and his fellow writers to decide to address the fact that their lead was acting like he didn’t want to be caught dead on their set by having his character be high all the time. “Brody just changed his delivery, his investment in it,” Schwartz says. “His style shifted to such a degree that we felt like we needed to account for it creatively. “We were like, ‘Well, how do we explain his lethargy on-screen?’”
For Brody’s part, he may have become more polite over the years, but he hasn’t gotten any more interested in hiding his disdain for those later episodes: “In terms of engagement as a whole, I’ll just say that they’re different shows, Season One and [the later seasons],” he notes in the history. “Had the quality been the quality of Season One, I’m sure I would have been a lot more engaged.”
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https://www.avclub.com/the-o-c-chris-pine-star-olivia-wilde-revelations-book-1851055811“Adam Brody’s apathy was so bad that the writers made his character into a pot head to compensate for it.”
wait… is this article just the last three paragraphs of that article with a more SEO friendly headline and image?
“Had the quality been the quality of Season One, I’m sure I would have been a lot more engaged.”I mean, he’s not wrong.
For real. I rewatched the whole series in 2022 and hole shit Season 3 was exactly as bad as I remembered it being back when it first aired. Brody quite understandably was not enjoying it and clearly, none of the others were too.Johnny the surfer and his idiot mate Chilli are just the absolute nadir.
The showrunner had written a one-season show and it was really successful so they just kept going because that’s how network TV works.
It was probably too late for him at that point, but season 4 really got the show back on track I thought, which seemed impossible. Once they killed off Marissa the show got a lot more fun.Also, let’s not forget that season one was TWENTY SEVEN episodes. That’s insane. That’s like four seasons of a show now. So I can see how he felt burnt out and also how they ran out of plot. The thing i loved about the show–how they didn’t linger on any plots of do dumb cliffhangers–also meant that they just blew through plot lines. Which is how you end up with alcoholic Kirsten, stoner Seth, Fight Club Ryan, etc.
Man, I do miss long seasons where the characters have room to breathe. Now you’re lucky to get episodes of something on Netflix once every two years.
I love those filler and bottle episodes. Maybe not for every show, but I truly do miss series that take the scenic route each season.
Some of the greatest episodes of shows have come from “Here’s an idea we writers want to explore while we’re trying to get to 100 episodes for syndication.” Now we get 8-episode seasons where you get angry at them for sparing a minute for a plot you don’t like because you know it’s detracting from a plot that you do.
“you get angry at them for sparing a minute for a plot you don’t like because you know it’s detracting from a plot that you do.”
I’ve never done that, but most reviewers seem to go that way.
they don’t even go to school until like episode 10. it’s wild.
Fight Club Ryan WAS pretty great, though!
He is 100% correct. The O.C. got worse and worse as it went along. The first season promised something more than a crappy soap opera. The latter seasons (as well as the final few episodes of the extended first season) reneged on that promise.
“He is 100% correct.”
Exactly. He was being paid to do a job but he wasn’t having fun so he gave up and didn’t care and didn’t try.
That’s the right way to go through life.
No he’s wrong. We need to learn there are two parts to a situation. How it makes you feel, and the reaction to it. Script sucks, you may be disappointed, you don’t sabotage other people working . Your candidate loses the election, be disappointed, don’t get to storm the capitol.
Wat?
You nailed the landing on that. Outstanding finish.
Wow Adam Brody sounds like an unprofessional jackass.
This might hurt his thriving film career.
So firing someone for being bad at their job wasn’t an option?
He was one of the main characters in one of the most popular shows on TV at the time. It’s not like he was working at K-Mart.
So wouldn’t he want to work even harder? And since he didn’t wouldn’t there be tons of actors jumping at the chance to get on the show?
Based on the fact that he didn’t, I guess not? For whatever reason, it’s easier to continue overpaying someone for a bad job than hire someone new to overpay.
He also got completely back on track in S4, once killing Marisa made the show fun and good again.
The fact that the writers had to write around his behavior is a good indicator of how much influence his presence had on the show.
Why would the showrunner fire himself?
He left Gilmore Girls to do this show, then just phoned it in?
No one’s more disappointed by the departure of Dave (Lane deserved better than Zack!) than me, but season 1 of the OC was really solid, so it makes sense that he left. Also, he went from bit character to co-lead. + more $.
I’m sure Mr. Brody cried all the way to the bank.
Has there ever been a show where you could track its downfall so precisely?
The O.C. came blazing onto the scene, but it truly did get worse after that first season. Not bad enough that people noticed right away, but by the final season it jumped those sharks like there was no tomorrow.
True Blood?
Heroes
Man, S4 is awesome!S2 is damn solid, as well.S3, though…WOOF
Think of his gig working on set of The OC as a job for a second… what Adam Brody did was so toxic and unprofessional. I don’t care what the quality of the script writing was…. he was getting paid money. This is such toxic behaviour blech.
I have seen every episode of The OC at least twice and I have no recollection of the final season whatsoever. Like, not even a scene.
Ryan opens the season as a cage fighter!They do It’s a Wonderful Life with him and Taylor!Chris Pratt thinks Seth is his spirit animal’
Maybe he shouldn’t have run away from Gilmore Girls if The OC was so beneath him.
He starts smoking midway through S3 and it’s never mentioned in S4.And you know what? S3 was beneath everyone involved, including the writers, haha!
Dumb fucking show, beloved by exclusively by white trash ret@rds