10 TV Shows That Should Have Ended After One Season

This is not to knock seasons two through four of The O.C, because the SoCal teen drama remained engaging, glossy fun throughout. The characters were so engaging, the majority of the actors so charming, that we’d happily stick with them, no matter how ridiculous things ended up getting.

At the same time, the increasing wildness of the characters and storylines were ultimately a betrayal of what The O.C started out to be. Yes, it was always essentially a soap, with its adolescent characters experiencing the wildest of emotions and the adults behaving no better themselves.

But there was a smartness to Josh Schwartz’ approach that was undercut by the sheer barminess of its later years. It was, ultimately, just about believable - we could empathise with Seth declaring his love at the school fair more than we could with, say, Ryan taking up cage fighting.

Had the series ended on the heart wrenching, melancholic note of season one, it would have been a shocking downer, but a bold move fitting of such a smart teen show.