‘One Tree Hill’: The Worst Episode of the Series, According to IMDb
Quite a lot happens in Tree Hill, North Carolina. One Tree Hill fans know that The CW drama (formerly The WB show) took many, many turns in nine seasons from 2003 to 2012. The series followed a group of friends in the small North Carolina town from their high school days all the way to their late 20s. One Tree Hill may have been a little overdramatized and unrealistic at times, but there’s no denying that fans loved almost every minute. Which episode did many fans consider their least favorite?
The start of ‘One Tree Hill’ Season 7 wasn’t particularly popular
The very beginning of One Tree Hill Season 7 introduced a few new characters. First, the show brought in Haley James Scott’s (Bethany Joy Lenz) older sister, a quirky and fun-loving photographer named Quinn (Shantel VanSanten). Along with Quinn, the series also introduced Clay Evans (Robert Buckley), who became Nathan Scott’s (James Lafferty) agent when he joined the NBA.
The show implied that Clay loved to party, which ended up getting him and Nathan in trouble when another new character arrived: a woman named Renee (Kate French). Renee claimed that she became pregnant when Nathan allegedly had an affair with her, and she attempted to blackmail the NBA star.
According to IMDb fan ratings, that plot did not do particularly well. The first two episodes of season 7 earned a 7.8 rating, while the third received a 7.9. Collectively, these episodes became rated the second-worst.
What is the worst ‘One Tree Hill’ episode, per IMDb?
Some fans didn’t agree with the season 7 Renee plot, but that’s not even the worst that came from One Tree Hill. One particular episode from season 6 received an even lower rating on IMDb. Season 6 Episode 11, titled “We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me),” sent the characters all the way back to the 1940s.
While working on a movie script, Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) drifted off to sleep and dreamt that Tree Hill traveled back in time. In his dream, he owned Karen’s Cafe and ran it as a popular nightclub. Meanwhile, the evil Dan Scott (Paul Johansson) acted as a mob boss and ran the competing Comet Club with Peyton (Hilarie Burton) at his side. After getting to know Peyton, Lucas fell in love with her and tried to take her from Dan’s abusive clutches. This resulted in Dan accidentally shooting Peyton, which ended the dream.
This episode of One Tree Hill certainly went in a different direction, but many fans didn’t love the experimentation. The episode ended up with a 6.9 rating on IMDb, the lowest of the entire series.
Chad Michael Murray wrote the episode
The episode with the lowest IMDb rating happened to be the only one that Murray wrote. Back in 2008, the actor discussed the opportunity to write the 1940s episode with Wilmington, North Carolina publication Star-News, and explained where he got the idea.
“I’ve been talking to [show creator Mark Schwahn] about just different concepts and ideas I’ve had for little themed episodes of One Tree Hill,” he told the publication. “A lot of them were very off the wall, but finally I said, ‘What could I do that would be very One Tree Hill and still kind of get a little bit of a different world which would be fun for all of the actors to play and fun to shoot, something just a little bit different and just put my own little spin on it.’ So I came up with taking our characters and setting them in the ’40s.”
