When it premiered in 2003, the concept of "One Tree Hill" was better than the show itself. Set in a small North Carolina town — where almost no one, oddly, had a Southern accent — it featured two squabbling, basketball-playing half-brothers with the same father.
As The CW teen drama begins its fifth season with a two-hour premiere tonight (7 p.m. Ch. 30; subsequent episodes will air at 8 p.m. Tuesdays), "One Tree Hill" has traveled more than five years from its initial concept.
In the fourth-season finale, the kids graduated from high school; as the new season begins, the gang time-travels four years into the future, skipping all the college drama. More on that in a few paragraphs.
The season begins with soulful, now-published author Lucas Scott (Chad Michael Murray, looking more and more cheesy-skeevy with every new facial-hair configuration) becoming coach of his former high-school basketball team. Half-brother Nathan (James Lafferty), who dreamed of being a pro dribbler, is still married to Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti), but his dreams have evaporated, leaving him to sulk.
Peyton (Hilarie Burton) is working as an assistant for a record-company-executive slimeball in Los Angeles. He invites her to an important meeting, if she'll unbutton the top button of her blouse. She complies.
Her best friend, Brooke (Sophia Bush), has become a big-time New York fashionista with her label Clothes Over Bros. She works with a nasty woman (Daphne Zuniga), whom Brooke hired but who seems to be calling the shots.
Fans of the show will probably be happy to know the stories, though geographically scattered at the start, eventually return to Tree Hill.
Because of the fast-forward, the adult characters are sidelined, but villainous Dan Scott (Paul Johansson), last seen in prison for the murder of his nice-guy brother, Keith, will continue to have a regular presence in the show. Karen (Moira Kelly) and Whitey (Barry Corbin) will cameo in the first 12 episodes that were completed before the writers' strike began.
Series creator Mark Schwahn said he had the idea of jumping the story ahead before season four, when he was trying to persuade The CW to keep the show (after the dissolution of The WB).
"I think it's unprecedented. That's one of the reasons I was attracted to it, but whenever you come up with an angle or story line that's unprecedented, it's also risky," Schwahn said by phone recently.
Network and studio executives were initially leery of the concept, but they warmed to it. It probably helped that, "Beverly Hills, 90210" aside, most college-set shows have failed ("Saved by the Bell: The College Years," "Class of '96," etc.).
Economically, the fast-forward meant no college sets would have to be built. Storywise, Schwahn could avoid improbably sending the whole crew to a fictional university.
Schwahn said he was excited about the story line following Lucas as he assumes the role Keith played in his life (Lucas offers guidance to the 4-year-old son of Nathan and Haley).
The writer said he expected to do more jumping back in time to fill in gaps in the missing four years, but stories the writers crafted in the present were compelling enough that there were fewer flashbacks than he expected.
With "One Tree Hill" yet to premiere and its future beyond these 12 episodes uncertain, Schwahn said the last episode filmed does end in a cliffhanger, albeit not as dramatic as Nathan trapped in a limo underwater (season three's finale).
"If the show continues, it will be really interesting (to resolve). And if the show doesn't continue, I think the fans will have enough," he said. "They'll want to know more but it's not going to break their hearts. They'll just have to fill in the blanks on their own."
