AAA<\/p>\n
When I talk about my teenage self, there are two pieces of personal lore I always feel inclined to share. The first is that iconic television series The O.C. shaped everything from my lifelong music taste to my penchant for mildly neurotic but charming brunette men. The second is that my mum made me go to bed at 8.30pm until I was 16. Every single night.<\/p>\n
As many Millennials will remember, in Australia The O.C. aired on Network Ten every Tuesday night at (you can see where this is going) 8.30pm.<\/p>\n
![\"I\u2019m](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0dc1ab6aa3355958a32b27522b5391c73024f1c6.jpeg\")
I\u2019m tired of finding a show I actually enjoy, only for it to be over in a day. Bring back the 22-episode season.The Sydney Morning Herald<\/p>\n
My unrelenting fear of anyone finding out I was often forced to go to bed before the sun went down was only ever eclipsed by one concern: outing myself as the single person in my friend group who hadn\u2019t watched the latest episode of everyone\u2019s favourite Californian teen drama.<\/p>\n
Every Wednesday morning at school I would corner whichever friend crossed my path first and \u2013 through a series of subtle questions \u2013 extract the episode synopsis. For the rest of the day I\u2019d pretend I had seen the episode, vaguely gossiping along while secretly counting down the hours until I could go home and watch it. A day late, recorded on VHS.<\/p>\n
Not only was this a masterful act of deception for a teenage girl (the ultimate masters of deception), it was also one I had to navigate week after week, through the entire school term and beyond. Because back then The O.C. didn\u2019t suffer from modern TV curses, like streaming-era budget cuts or obliterated attention spans, and each season lasted well beyond eight measly episodes.<\/p>\n
The first season of The O.C. delivered 27 perfect episodes, followed by 24 in the second and 25 in the third. It\u2019s no coincidence that its fourth \u2013 and famously worst \u2013 season was also its shortest, limping across the finish line at just 16 episodes.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m not afraid to say it: if anything, The O.C. could have done with more episodes. <\/p>\n
Even if The O.C. wasn\u2019t your personal gateway drug, so many of the classic shows that have permanently embedded themselves in our culture \u2013 Friends, Grey\u2019s Anatomy, Seinfeld and the best version of The Office (the US one) \u2013 did so purely on the back of their longevity, pulling massive 22 to 25 episode orders at their peak.<\/p>\n
In the twenty-something years since Seth and Summer blessed our screens, I\u2019ve watched plenty of good \u2013 arguably even \u201cbetter\u201d \u2013 TV shows. But despite my love for Succession, The White Lotus, Industry and Beef, they all have one huge problem: each show has 10 episodes or fewer a season. And, quite frankly, I\u2019m over it.<\/p>\n
In such a short amount of time it\u2019s impossible for me to form the kind of deep connection \u2013 with characters, relationships or fictional places \u2013 that I can after spending 20-plus episodes with them.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until season two, episode 15 that TV\u2019s best kiss, between Nick and Jess on New Girl<\/a>, happened. It took 88 episodes of Gilmore Girls for Luke and Lorelai to finally make out, in a scene that comes a close second. And Fran Fine didn\u2019t go on her first official date with Mr Sheffield until season five of The Nanny.<\/p>\n If any of these moments had been rushed into episode two of eight, rest assured I would not be discussing them now; I\u2019d barely even remember the characters\u2019 names. And it\u2019s not just television romance that suffers from this screen-time starvation.<\/p>\n When Prime Video\u2019s recent eight-episode hit Off Campus included a meaningless Thanksgiving plot line, I snapped my fingers at the TV, annoyed that half a precious episode was being wasted on scenes which, under different circumstances, could have been quite fun. With room in the season to spare, holiday episodes don\u2019t feel like a waste of time.<\/p>\n Instead, they are the perfect stage for scenes that both entertain us and make us feel bad about our own beige and boring lives, as all good television shows should. If I\u2019m guaranteed to feel a little disappointed every Christmas, and a little bored every New Year\u2019s Eve, let it be because of the unrealistic expectations set by a recent episode of TV (anything but reality, please).<\/p>\n In a world where I already feel paralysed by the sheer choice of what to watch, I\u2019m tired of finding a show I actually enjoy, only for it to be finished in two to three business days, even if I actively try to savour it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n What I really need is to be able to watch a show for so long that I start referring to the characters by their first names in casual conversation, as though they are close friends. I need single episodes that do absolutely nothing to advance the plot but spend 42 glorious minutes watching someone try to buy a couch or resolve a minor misunderstanding; episodes that serve no purpose other than to let me live in their world a little longer.<\/p>\n And I need my television seasons to last \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 at least the duration of one literal season. Because if I am ever going to form a decades-long emotional attachment to a series, it\u2019s going to need to stretch on longer than a typical mid-30s hangover.<\/p>\n And with that, let this be a reminder to myself that this Sunday feels like the perfect time for another The O.C. rewatch. I might even stay up until 9pm.<\/p>\n Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter<\/a>. To read more from Spectrum, visit our page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want more Verdicts?Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"She](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1b646a2a9158079a75592f604b3bbc78dde2d238.jpeg\")
She had style, she had flair, she was there \u2026 for up to 27 episodes a season.Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Gyan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5288ec62201cd50fb4e3c32c5119a8644e931b61aefbf78d692a1a33bf0c46ba.png\")
Gyan Yankovich<\/a> is lifestyle editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August 6, 2026 \u2014 7:29pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-845663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}