All of the ridiculous things that happened on The O.C.

In its four-series run, teen drama The O.C. gave us many things. Seth Cohen. Christmakkuh. Men wearing singlets as outerwear. The reality show Laguna Beach. Seth Cohen.

But it’s easy to be blinded by all the impossibly white teeth and forget that as the series stretched into the mid 2000s, it also dished up several California-sized serves of utter ridiculousness.

Like that time…

1. When a bunch of teenagers ran away to Mexico and one nearly died, but no one got in trouble from their mum.

Being rich must be nice. Not only do you parents buy you a new pony when your first one gets alopecia (see S2E1), they also don’t yell at you when you flee the country.

Aside from the Mexico saga, there was also that time Seth pissed off with his boat for the entire summer holidays. Meanwhile, you were getting grounded for coming home from the shops 10 minutes late.

2. When Summer took a K-Pop star to the senior formal.

His name was 'Big Korea'. He had a side fringe.

3. When Chris Brown played a band geek.

Remember than time when rapper/singer/dancer Chris Brown was Will Tutt, a guy who played the drums - sorry - drum in the high Harbour School band.

No one was buying it. No one. Not even Breezy himself. "I was kind of a geek in school, grade-wise," Brown said at the time. "But style-wise, I was always popular and cool."

4. When a green alien stole Summer's pregnancy test.

T'was Season Four. Summer had had done the dirty with Seth Cohen, but the real heavy breathing came when she was faced with the results of pregnancy test. In an effort to calm a hyperventilating Summer, Taylor tossed the stick (on which there had recently been actual pee) into her handbag. That handbag was then stolen by a woman dressed like a promiscuous alien, sparking a goose chases that ended up at an intergalactic-themed rave. Because of course it did.

5. When Ryan fell into a coma and nothing that happened next actually happened.

You know how in high school English when you ran out of ideas for your narrative homework the solution was always, "And then he woke up"? Well, S4E7 was basically that.

When Ryan fell off the Cohen's roof and into a coma, we got a sliding doors glimpse (that precisely no one asked for) into what his life may have been like had he not been plucked from the hood. It was a world in which Summer wore velour trackies, Sandy Cohen was married to Julie Cooper, Marissa was dead and Taylor was an overweight boy.

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6. When Marissa nearly died. Several times.

Only Harry 'The Boy Who Lived' Potter could give that girl a run for her fictional money when it comes to life-threatening experiences.

There was the Tijuana overdose thing. The being held hostage by Oliver at gunpoint thing. The being violently attacked by Ryan's brother Trey thing. And then the actually dying when Volchok rammed Ryan's car thing.

Sure, the dancing with death plot device wasn't sustainable. But after it actually happened, sadly, neither was the show.

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