3. The O.C (2004-2005)
If I am being completely honest with you I have to admit I feel a little embarrassed that at the time I loved this show as much as I did. I have to put it down to age more than anything else. If you were not in your teenage years when this show was on air, you probably wouldn't have enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I did. A lot of my love for this show also probably comes from the fact that I am from England, and any show set in sunny California makes me happy as I can dream of living in a place where it isn't raining every other day of the year. Regardless of the reasons why I loved this show, I still have very fond memories of this shows first two seasons. The reason I watched this show was not because of Ryan and Marissa's whiny and supposedly at times dark and complex romance- I had Buffy for that. The reason I watched was because I was practically obsessed with the whole Summer and Seth on again and off again relationship and for this reason Season 2 is my favorite season, only because for most of the season this relationship is really the focus. Sure, it was somewhat the focus in Season 1, but I preferred the relationship in Season 2 because at this point in time I had grown to love the characters a lot more and was far more invested in the relationship. Unlike the other shows on this list, I don't watch repeated viewing of this show and even though this is one of the latest shows to air, this is the season I haven't seen for the longest time, so my memory of it isn't all that good. I do remember however that this show brought in a new, ultra-loveable boyfriend for Summer which only made the Seth and Summer thing all the more interesting. Despite desperately wanting these two to end up together, mostly because Seth reminded me of myself and I wanted this fictional version of me to be happy (in reality, he is nothing like me- but he is geeky so that is something) I also remember feeling conflicted because Summer's new boyfriend was actually super nice and if anything Seth was the jerk who Summer probably shouldn't have ended up with. I also remember that this Season introduced to the show, and the world, the wonderfully talented actress Olivia Wilde (who has since gone onto to star in many movies and was a cast member on House). I wasn't really all that much of a fan of the lesbian relationship between Marissa and Olivia's characters name "Alex" to be honest with you. This is not because I have anything against homosexuality whatsoever... I am myself a homosexual so that would be a little strange... but more because I don't like the idea of characters turning bisexual just to get ratings. That said, I prefer some homosexuality on a show to none whatsoever so I can't complain all that much. Still, without a doubt, this was the season of the show which I loved the most, and despite Season 3 and Season 4 being huge and embarrassingly bad let downs , Season 1 and 2 were still great seasons of television no matter what anyone else says.