"The OC" Is DOA

Once upon a time (for about a season and a half), I was a faithful watcher of this silly soap. It was well-cast (though I was sorry to see Adam Brody leave "Gilmore Girls") and fun. And now it's gone. The show ends Feb. 22. Give it credit: the show launched SIX soundtracks, gave visibility to all sorts of bands, invented Chrismukkah and gave major career boosts to its four young leads, especially Brody (who's a keeper), though he and Benjamin McKenzie (who seems to have gotten his role after about a dozen guys in front of him passed...and the producers should thank their lucky stars about that)and Rachel Bilson all have shots, while Mischa Barton just has to remain Mischa to stay in the gossip pages. (I cruelly called her Kabuki Girl for her desperate attempts to emote. By the way, the secret to soap acting is to try and do as little as possible while delivering crazy dialogue and plot twists. Just watch a daytime soap and you'll see what I mean.) Creator Josh Schwartz perhaps unintentionally sets the bar very low by modestly suggesting, "For a certain audience, at a certain time, THE O.C. has meant something. For that we are grateful."