The show had true potential. A good cast, a dreamy setting and a great music selection each week. Unfortunately, the writing was all over the place, when it began like your regular Dallas/Dynasty type of soap opera, implying things would get more interesting and complex as the season unfolds. And ended in true WB fashion, like a clone of its most popular teen drama of that era, One Tree Hill. Revisiting the episodes recently, I thought that the Winter finale ended on a high note and it made me eager to watch more, only after the show « returned » things settled in a strange and underwhelming way, for erasing completely those new challenges right of the bat, and making the stories more politically correct, like they did with Everwood a year earlier. The 2005 episodes were more about the Shelley character, and the fight for power between the two wealthy families, that was introduced during the first minutes of the series, took a back sit to leave room for more of the usual angst and « coming of age » drama. The show lost its way so bad, one of its main stars left abruptly, and after the remaining episodes were clearly rushed into production (and were too focused on the coed's life), the « series finale » was like a boring (and overdone) after school special. I wonder why they even bothered green lighting a whole season in the first place...
