On my end, I started watching OTH in 2009. I was working in a video store (!!!) and we had the DVDs for season 1-4. I had heard about the show before, but thought the premise about two half-brothers raised separately and being (initially) enemies wasn't appealing to me. I also don't really care about sports and the show seemed to be heavily about basketballs. A co-worker kept telling me I should rent them (we could rent DVDs for free) and that she was certain I would like it. I ended up doing it and loved those 4 first seasons! I really liked Peyton, I thought she was a unique character in the world of teen dramas and really identified to her. I recently starter re-watching OTH (but stopped after 10 episodes and went on to watch something else haha) and was surprised by how (in my opinion!) bad the pilot and first few eps were. I was trying to place myself in the shoes of a new viewers and I wasn't invested in any of the storylines or characters. I feel like in the more cut-throat world of streaming and shorter seasons, this project wouldn't have been greenlighted.
On my end, I started watching OTH in 2009. I was working in a video store (!!!) and we had the DVDs for season 1-4. I had heard about the show before, but thought the premise about two half-brothers raised separately and being (initially) enemies wasn't appealing to me. I also don't really care about sports and the show seemed to be heavily about basketballs. A co-worker kept telling me I should rent them (we could rent DVDs for free) and that she was certain I would like it. I ended up doing it and loved those 4 first seasons! I really liked Peyton, I thought she was a unique character in the world of teen dramas and really identified to her. I recently starter re-watching OTH (but stopped after 10 episodes and went on to watch something else haha) and was surprised by how (in my opinion!) bad the pilot and first few eps were. I was trying to place myself in the shoes of a new viewers and I wasn't invested in any of the storylines or characters. I feel like in the more cut-throat world of streaming and shorter seasons, this project wouldn't have been greenlighted.