Greatest Show in the History of Television???

Now, I am still not sure if it was a joke or not, but the ad claiming that since last week's OC was so amazing they just had to show it again, was a bit much. Now, I have been watching this show from the very beginning. I was a huge fan. But lately, Mr. Schwartz, the show's creator, and his team of writers, have gotten lazy, stupid, and cliched.
Last week's episode was one of the worst I have ever seen. The Marissa/Alex relationship, although it sparks steamy mental images, is forced. One day Marissa decides that she digs Alex so she decides to see what playing for the other team is like. But, the sudden decision to move in with her was brash, precipitous and drew the viewer out of the story even more.
Now, onto Ryan and Lindsay. First, it's great to see Ryan come out of his shell, and Benjamin Mackenzie is doing a great job of still playing the character close to form. But this whole thing with Lindsay being Caleb's daughter and the whole go between from Ryan to Caleb is the cream filling of daytime TV. I realize of course that The OC wasn't reaching for any sort of benchmark, but there's a reason why the majority of The OC's audience is male. It started with great characterization and dialogue. Of course the indulgence of gorgeous women helps tremendously. But it seems that Mr. Schwartz does not have the creative staying power to keep The OC up to the standard that he set with the first few episodes.
The worst of all of this goulash of characters is Seth. How many hours of incessant whining, pining, whimpering, pansy-ass fluff can we take from this kid? Seth was hilarious when the show first started. Now, I want to beat him like a red-headed step child. Is he supposed to be the Ross to Summer's Rachel? How much more cookie cutter can they get? When Summer first moved on with Zach, I was optimistic that they were going to move on. And they destroyed my hopes. The mere notion that Summer would go back to that whining, pathetic excuse for a man is seriously ridiculous! And I know that it was supposed to be some sort of joke, tongue in cheek, type of thing when Summer shows up at the end to kiss Seth a la Spiderman, but COME ON!!! That scene sucked ass in Spiderman. You are the lowest form of creative hack when you rip off someone's story or scene idea. But you have the creative power of rat feces when you steal a horrible idea.
There is sun coming through the clouds, however. Peter Gallagher and Kelly Rowan continue to give great performances, but the scenes given them and the dialogue between their characters is growing weak, stale and monotonous.
There are some great, memorable characters here. But TV characters are like plants, you need to give them the proper dosage of sunlight (story lines), water (good, solid writing) and that special plant food mixture (sound direction) in order for them to really bring forth good fruits.
And right now, the once promising characters of The OC are unfortunately fast shrivelling into brown weeds.