Watch One Tree Hill

The show One Tree Hill takes place in a fictional town, Tree Hill, North Carolina. Initially, the storyline revolved around two half-brothers competing on the basketball team. Lucas Scott, played by Chad Michael Murray, is more of the quiet, writer type, while Nathan Scott, played by James Lafferty, is more of your typical jock character. Various love triangles develop between Lucas, Brooke Davis (Sophia Bush), and Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton) over the years. It gets pretty interesting as they're all friends. On top of that, it's very surprising to see the relationship between Nathan and Haley James (Bethany Joy Lenz) blossom and mature throughout the course of the show.

The first four seasons of One Tree Hill go through the high school years. The show had the drama, love, and fun times that you'd expect, although unlike other shows, it had more depth and had great characters that you'd either love or hate. That's what hooked so many viewers into this show for so many years. Diehard viewers were watching hoping their high school years would be like the cast's, or maybe they loved reminiscing on that time in their life through the show. However, a great majority of the fans grew up alongside these characters. From that moment in the pilot episode where Peyton was blasting her punk rock music to the final episode, these viewers were pretty much going through the same growing pains and excitement as the characters.

There are only a few shows that you can say defined a generation. One Tree Hill is easily one of them.

Starting with season five, the show continued the storyline with life after high school. Characters would be getting engaged or married. More couples were having kids. Things were getting pretty serious. While these changes from the high school years did turn away a good deal of fans for a bit, the show eventually began to pick up again, resulting in a solid finale.

One Tree Hill ended its run with the conclusion of its eighth season in April 2012. Many fans were sad to see the show end as it seemed like a part of their lives was coming to a close. For fans growing up alongside the show, it was hard to let go of the memories and all these fantastic characters.

For these reasons and many more, One Tree Hill will always be a special show in their hearts.

One Tree Hill is a series that ran for 9 seasons (188 episodes) between December 21, 2024 and on The CW