One Tree Hill

One Tree Hill isn't the worst show you'll see this season, but it may be the most depressingly superfluous. As too often happens with WB shows, Hill reminds you of every other WB show you've ever seen. It's as if the network has done away with original programming and gone straight to scheduling reruns. [23 Sept 2003, p.4D]

The young audience for which One Tree Hill is aimed may swallow all this unflinchingly. Yet if they learned anything from "Dawson's Creek," a much better and smarter show, they're more likely to gag. [23 Sept 2003, p.83]

One Tree Hill needs a lot of work. The characters are painfully one-dimensional, as they fall on either the good or the bad side of the fence. Their actions are predictable based on whether they've been designated as angels or devils. The writers need to humanize them - especially the brothers - by giving them mixed feelings and unexpected lines. Also, some humor please. [23 Sept 2003, p.D14]

The title of this attempt at teen high drama is one of only several unintentionally comical elements in a series that gets some of the big notes right, but squawks out all of the little ones.[23 Sept 2003, p.C7]

One Tree Hill is more like "One Ill-Conceived Idea" or "One Note Hill." It just sits there, like desperate mush, a recipe for success that is bland and unsatisfying. It's like they came up with the concoction -- teen angst and pouting and brooding and raw emotions and shirtlessness -- then mixed it all together with lumpen writing and overarching themes.

In some way or another, this show is trying to be "Everwood," "Dawson's Creek," "Eight Mile" and "Hoosiers" all rolled into one. It would be a whole lot more accessible if it would just try to be One Tree Hill, whatever that is. [23 Sept 2003, p.79]

A standard-issue WB teen soap opera about love and basketball that promises to get better because it can't really get much worse...It has no distinguishable stars and worse, for all its dramatic story lines, no real passion. [23 Sept 2003, p.E1]

The show is pure hooey. [21 Sept 2003, p.N01]

This behavior might make for a juicy melodrama if the rest of the characters weren't so predictably earnest. In the pilot, the stakes in a one-on-one showdown turn out to be meaningless, making any emotional investment in the outcome worthless. [23 Sept 2003, p.10E]