One Tree Hill (TV series)
One Tree Hill is an American teen drama television series created by Mark Schwahn, which premiered on September 23, 2003, on the WB. After the series' third season, the WB merged with UPN to form the CW, and from September 27, 2006, the series was broadcast by the CW in the United States until the end of its run on April 4, 2012. The show is set in the fictional town of Tree Hill, North Carolina, and initially follows the lives of two half-brothers, played by Chad Michael Murray and James Lafferty, who compete for positions on their school's basketball team and the drama that ensues from the brothers' respective romantic relationships.
Most of the filming took place in and around Wilmington, North Carolina. Many of the scenes were shot near the battleship USS North Carolina and on the University of North Carolina Wilmington campus. The first four seasons of the show focus on the main characters' lives through their high school years. Within these seasons, we see the characters build unexpected relationships as they face the challenges of growing up in a small town. However, at the beginning of the fifth season, Schwahn advanced the timeline by four years to show their lives after college. This season featured a new storyline supported by flashbacks to their college years. Later, Schwahn made it jump a further fourteen months from the end of the sixth to the start of the seventh season. The opening credits were originally accompanied by the song "I Don't Want to Be" by Gavin DeGraw. The theme was removed from the opening in the fifth season; Schwahn said that this was to lower production costs, to add more time for the storyline, and because he felt that the song was more representative of the core characters' adolescent past than their present maturity. The opening then consisted only of the title against a black background. The theme was restored for season 8, in response to audience demand, and was sung by a different artist each episode.
The series premiered to 2.5million viewers and rose to 3.3million in its second week, becoming one of only three shows to rise in their second episode during the 2003–2004 television season. The series received numerous award nominations, winning two Teen Choice Awards.
On May 12, 2009, it was confirmed that Murray and Hilarie Burton had declined to return for the seventh season, although accounts of what transpired vary. Their characters, Lucas and Peyton, had been two of the five lead characters and had provided one of the series' central love stories throughout the show. On May 17, 2011, the CW renewed One Tree Hill for a ninth and final season, placing an order for 13 episodes. Bethany Joy Lenz and Sophia Bush were signed as full-time regulars for one final season, and Lafferty appeared as a part-time regular. Murray returned for a special appearance during the final season, which premiered on January 11, 2012. The show is the fourth-longest-running series on the CW network, or the networks that came together to make it up, after Supernatural, 7th Heaven and Smallville.
In August 2024, a reboot of the series by Hilarie Burton, Sophia Bush and Danneel Ackles was announced as in development at Netflix.
Series overview
Set in the fictional North Carolina coastal town of Tree Hill, the main storyline in the early seasons is the relationship between two half-brothers, Lucas and Nathan Scott, who start out as enemies but bonded as the show progresses. The show starts out with Lucas becoming a member of the Tree Hill Ravens with the help of his uncle Keith. Nathan, the team captain, is threatened by this and it becomes the basis of their rivalry, also fueled by Lucas's romantic interest in Nathan's girlfriend, Peyton Sawyer. Later on, Brooke Davis, Peyton's best friend, tries to date Lucas, while Nathan attempts to date Lucas's best friend Haley James. The character of Lucas and Nathan's father, Dan Scott, is occasionally explored throughout. There is a focus on his relationships with Karen Roe, Lucas's mother, and Deb Scott, Nathan's mother, and his decision to stay with Deb rather than Karen, thus abandoning Lucas. These experiences eventually bond the brothers as the series progresses and life unfolds for both of them.Episodes
Cast and characters
Production
Conception
Schwahn originally planned to make One Tree Hill a feature length film with the title Ravens, the name of the show's high school basketball team. However, he became convinced that it would be more interesting as a television series. He said the idea for the story came from his own personal experiences. As in the setting of the show, Schwahn went to school in a small town and played on a basketball team. He described himself as similar to the character of Mouth McFadden. Schwahn said that in designing the show, he created Lucas as "this underdog kid from the wrong side of the tracks" who crosses over to the pretty and popular; he wanted to show the life of such a person in a basketball context, feeling that basketball was a great platform for telling stories.The title of the show and the name of the fictional town where the series takes place are derived from the song "One Tree Hill", which is named after the landmark in New Zealand. Most of the show's episodes are titles of songs, bands or albums. Schwahn named the town "Tree Hill" because, while he was writing the idea for the show, he had been listening to the album The Joshua Tree by U2. In the early days, fans often asked Schwahn why the show was named One Tree Hill when the town was just called Tree Hill. The question is ostensibly answered when Karen tells Lucas in episode 1.22, "There is only one Tree Hill ... and it's your home." The same sentence is said by Haley to Jamie on the roof of Karen's Cafe in episode 9.13, the series finale.
Music
Music plays a significant part in the plot and the movement of the scenes throughout the show. Schwahn revealed that each episode is named after a particular song, band or album that has something in common with the theme of the episode. Popular indie music has been featured on the show, and various artists have guest-starred.Three soundtrack albums from the show have been released: One Tree Hill – Music from the WB Television Series, Vol. 1, Friends with Benefit: Music from the Television Series One Tree Hill, Volume 2, and The Road Mix: Music from the Television Series One Tree Hill, Volume 3. A portion of the proceeds of the second soundtrack go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, tying in with a storyline on the show involving breast cancer. On November 13, 2008, iTunes published a soundtrack called Music From One Tree Hill, which contained songs from the sixth season.
Episode format
Episodes follow a regular structure. An episode normally begins with a recap of events relevant to the upcoming narrative, although this is sometimes dropped to satisfy time constraints. During the first four seasons, the theme tune is played either immediately after the recap or after the first few scenes. Whenever an episode features sensitive or violent subjects, or when an episode's running length is close to the total allotted time, there is no opening montage, but only One Tree Hill written on a black background. From the beginning of season 5, the theme song, "I Don't Want to Be" by Gavin DeGraw, was abandoned, and only the single white-on-black title was used. The theme was restored for season 8, sung by different artists each week. Schwahn's reasons for removing the theme were various:One Tree Hill is known for its numerous voice-overs featuring either literary quotes or characters reflecting on events of the episode. Most of them have been made by Chad Michael Murray's character Lucas. However, other characters have done so several times. Guest stars Bryan Greenberg, Sheryl Lee, Torrey DeVitto, and Ashley Rickards have also done voice-overs for single episodes. Characters who interact with the main cast, such as Bevin, Chase, Shelly and Glenda, helped to narrate the joint episodes, being portrayed by Bevin Prince, Stephen Colletti, Elisabeth Harnois and Amber Wallace. As the show progresses, songs continue to replace voiceovers occasionally. At the beginning of season 7, Paul Johansson's character, Dan Scott, has taken over the narrator's role.
In 2008, a black and white episode on a film noir theme was planned, to be written by Chad Michael Murray. Schwahn said, "I think that noir-themed is very risky, because I think that can be very dark and very guy-ish in its approach. I'd say this is more Casablanca infused."
Series timeline
One Tree Hill starts in 2003 and has a complicated timeline, which varies between contrasting with and corresponding to the real world. In the first season, the main teenage characters are aged sixteen. The first and second seasons cover one year, and the third and fourth seasons another, so the main teenage characters are nearly eighteen at the end of the fourth season. The timeline was further complicated in the fifth season when the show was "dramatically retooled and set four years into the future – after the characters already graduated from college". The fifth season began shooting on July 30, 2007, and premiered January 8, 2008. In it, the characters were stated to be aged twenty-two. In 2009, Schwahn altered the timeline again, setting the seventh season fourteen months after the sixth, thus giving a better explanation for the somewhat abrupt departures of series leads Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton.Explaining the decision to start the series with the teenagers as juniors, Schwahn said, "Lucas and Nathan were important players on the team, the most important, and I just couldn't see that happening to freshmen." He also wanted to keep the characters in high school longer, saying, "I know a lot of the shows that we started with, the kids are out of high school now and into college and what have you, and I always thought that there was a loss of energy when that happened. It's hard to have everyone go to the same college and everyone stay together for whatever reason, or you lose some of your principles." Schwahn wanted to reinvigorate the show. "The show in many ways has been refaced and reinvigorated. It's very much a twenty-something show now with some relevant adult characters, and I really like that energy for the show," he said, and elaborated:
Schwahn felt that altering the series in this way allowed the storylines to be a little more complex, and said the actors welcomed the change. By the end of the seventh season, Schwahn and the production team assumed that the network had given the show its last season and decided to create a "mini" series finale in case the show was not renewed. For the season eight finale, the episode spanned an entire year, showing the progression of Brooke's pregnancy over the course of the episode. It was announced by the network a day after the finale that the show was to be renewed for a ninth and final season. The show features a further time jump of one year in the season opener and a further flash forward in the series finale, showing Jamie playing a high school basketball game on the Tree Hill Ravens, his jersey hanging on the wall with a plaque that reads "All Time Leading Scorer".