Will the O.C. die with Marissa?

When the going gets tough, or just boring, television shows undergo serious overhauls. On "I Love Lucy," the Ricardos moved upstate. On "Boy Meets World," the entire cast, including Mr. Feeny, started taking classes at Pennbrook College. And we all remember the embarrassment that was "Saved by the Bell: The New Class," which, awkwardly enough, still included Screech. After two dreary seasons of low ratings and lackluster plot lines, "The O.C." has now been added to this list of revamped programs: it has come back this season without its leading lady.

For those of you who somehow missed Fox's biggest news story of last spring, the season finale of "The O.C." ended with the death of Mischa Barton's character, Marissa Cooper. For many, the demise of such a style icon was a crushing blow. I myself painted my nails black and wore all of my longest necklaces simultaneously in homage to the lost trendster. But time heals all wounds, and after a summer of grief, I tuned in last Thursday evening, brimming with curiosity, to see if "The O.C." would continue marching on without its star.

The season-opener boasted an exciting reversion to the dynamic characters we saw in the first season. Without Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie) haunting the pool-house, the Cohens are back to being a three-person family, with Sandy (Peter Gallagher) still pursuing his old passions. In a much-needed switch, Ryan is once again bruised and bearded, angsting in poverty with only his "Harbor" sweatshirt to remind him of his former life. I was overjoyed to see muted colors and sweaty brows back in Orange County.

I was even open to the new Summer (Rachel Bilson) who, while attending Brown University, has become a bizarre hybrid of East and West Coast. Her vocabulary is still riddled with "like" and "totally" but instead of delivering these lines from under layers of Marc Jacobs, she now sports cargo pants and t-shirts bearing such slogans as "More Trees Less Bush."

Unfortunately, after a half-hour of these changes, the show took a turn back to boring predictability. Not-quite-funny quips and contrived plot lines were all that remained to drive us to the episode's conclusion. The show ended with a setup for the rest of the season.

The show's creators are clearly aware that simply rehashing the past won't keep viewers interested, and they spent much of last season paving the way for a crop of newbie "Newpsies." Kaitlin Cooper (Willa Holland), is the hottest 15-year-old around, and looks startlingly like Marissa as she traipses around Newport in the latest trends. Taylor Townsend (Autumn Reeser), the unpleasant overachiever who was thrust upon us last season, is back — with an opening credit which sadly indicates much more of her to come.

The highlight of the episode, and an unfailingly great quality of the series, is still the soundtrack. The show has skyrocketed many bands to fame, including The Killers and Death Cab for Cutie. It hits its mark again with the premiere's music selections. This episode's montages are accompanied by crooning Keane ballads and Belle & Sebastian numbers which will now undoubtedly soar in iTunes sales.

The show's ratings have severely declined from its initial numbers, from an average of 9.4 million viewers in season one to the estimated 3.4 million who watched last Thursday night. It is with sadness that I say that I expect an even more severe drop as the season continues. With plot lines now taking place in Rhode Island, the show has drawn away from the California home that defined its early life.

To make the uphill battle even steeper, the show's current time slot is Thursday at 9 p.m., which puts it up against such tough competition as "CSI" and "Grey's Anatomy." The season is only scheduled to run until February, and the network is trying to find ways to up the show's ratings, including broadcasting episodes on Myspace.com prior to their television airtimes.

Unlike Marissa, "The O.C." will not die without a fight. This season the network has to strive to gain a new set of viewers and reignite the interest of the original fan base. If the show continues on its current path, however, in a few months time we will be left with only our memories of its former glory. Our boxed sets of season one will be all we die-hards have to forever immortalize our Chanel-clad Marissa and the bad-boy Ryan who captured the hearts of 9.4 million.