Last night we watched last week’s episode of The O.C. It was full of meta-references about how “last year was so much better.” It’s a joke because the show’s ratings have really fallen off this year and everyone agrees that the show is suffering.

I was a huge fan last year but this year I find the show’s quality has really gone downhill, but I can’t quite put my finger on what is wrong. I think several of the characters — particularly Sandy and Kirsten — have been acting really out of character, which is never good. Also I think the show’s writers have no idea what to do with the Marissa character — sometimes she’s a boozy, rebellious teen, other times she’s Miss Popularity Social Chair.

Last week’s episode seems to imply that the writers think that the way to fix things is to just go back to what worked last year. Four new characters were introduced this year and they’ve all now been dispatched so the original couples from last year can reunite. I like Summer and Seth together and I believed their storyline, but trying to force Ryan and Marissa back together is a big mistake. I wasn’t sad to see D.J. (who?) or Alex leave the show, but I really liked Zach and especially Lindsay — I think both of them had real potential to introduce interesting storylines and help the original characters grow a little bit, but instead they’ve been dumped (quite suddenly, it feels) in order to try to rush back to last year’s status quo.

I’m sad to see one of my favourites go downhill so quickly but I find it interesting to think about what is wrong, and how it could be fixed. Here’s what I’d like to see:

* Marissa spiral downwards into a complete breakdown
* Ryan succeed at school and seriously think about university — only to have it jeopardized by his past
* Seth and Summer to be cute and charming and have at least 2 weeks off of silly Three’s Company style hijinks
* Sandy and Kirsten have their marriage tested by something other than a totally bloated Kim Delaney

Any other ideas?