I finished the series this morning.
This is a tough one. It felt like two related but significantly different series to me, with the shift in the middle. I already knew that Rina Mimoun took over from Greg Berlanti as the principal showrunner in seasons 3 and 4, but I think I would have guessed there was a handoff.
The style and tone change. The town recedes to just being a scenic setting as the Irv narration goes away; there's less focus on the peculiarities and character of Everwood. Everwood becomes (even) more of a relationship-focused show, with all the classic soap stand-bys like a conflicted character hugging an oblivious happy character, with the fade-out to commercial being the conflicted character's troubled eyes over the other person's shoulder. Newly introduced characters pull focus. Irv and Edna go for long stretches without appearing; their S3 separation is barely there. Even Delia is in and out, and it's surprising that a female showrunner didn't do more with her. I really missed her relationship with Edna..
There's also less focus on the medical practice (and too much of Jake's competing one). And I didn't like that round-up of Andy's former patients in the finale of S3, especially the humor at the expense of the young man with the stutter.
But I think how someone feels about S3 and S4 might come down to feelings about Hannah. I won't mince words. I couldn't stand her. The term "Mary Sue" gets overused, but she struck me as a classic Sue in the way the term was coined long ago: an author stand-in who becomes beloved by the familiar characters. She's an aspiring writer (like Mimoun probably was), she's awkward (but in "endearing" ways), she has a tragic back story that arguably trumps the Brown kids', and she eats up so much time. She becomes Amy's new best friend, she becomes Bright's girlfriend, people bring her up and talk about how great she is when she isn't in a scene. By the time they had her giving advice to grown-ups like Nina and Harold, who reacted as if it it were remarkably perceptive and helpful advice when it was usually just the things anyone would say, I was gritting my teeth.
It's nothing against Sarah Drew, who I thought was good as poor Kitty Romano on Mad Men. But Hannah was my least favorite part of all four seasons.
I should not focus too much on what I did not like. I really loved season 1, which was far and away my favorite. Season 2 seems unpopular with a lot of fans, but I thought it was a strong followup. The Madison story wasn't pleasurable. It was a train-wreck we saw coming from a mile away. But I could see what Ephram found appealing about her, and what she found appealing about him, and how Andy was in a difficult spot with a lot of bad options available to him, so it was doomed to blow up in everyone's face. I found that story generally solid in the acting and the handling. To me, it was preferable to Andy's dreary involvement with the Hayes couple (a waste of two good actors, Anne Heche and Jason Beghe) or anything Hannah.
On Amy: I grew to like her. I think Emily VanCamp really matured as an actor over four years. The moment when I really came to care about the character was something that was perilous and might have been really bad. It was when she was at the party with Tommy, took GHB and thought she saw Colin. That was one of my favorite scenes in the series, when he told her to stop following him, and she said (paraphrasing), "What am I supposed to do?" I felt for the first time I understand what a character I was running short on patience with was going through. Those beyond-the-grave conversations are not easy to do well, but that one nailed it, and I thought EvC was really poignant.
I also thought Mark Erwin was always great as all the versions of Colin: past, present, and imagined; sweet, confused, cruel, and unhinged.
Anyway, I'm glad to have seen it all, even if I couldn't love all the seasons equally. My favorite characters were the ones with whom we started; none of the later additions clicked with me in the same way. Even in what I felt were the weaker episodes, it was probably better than most of what was on the networks in 2002-06, especially shows that focused heavily on younger characters.
Edited August 11, 2021 by Asp BurgerSpelling
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