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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: July 6, 1983
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: We can hear you right now: “Oh, they’ll find any excuse to talk about Everwood.” Well, you’re absolutely right. No, Everwood never aired any new episodes on July 6th (though it would have made for a great summer series), but its teenage star Gregory Smith being born on July 6th is more than enough reason to talk about this perpetually underrated series. Everwood constantly stood in the shadows of other WB series, flashy teen soaps like Dawson’s Creek, acclaimed genre fiction like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even long-running junk like Charmed and 7th Heaven. Everwood came out of the Dawson’s Creek tree, with series creator Greg Berlanti having spent time with Pacey and Joey and Dawson down in Capeside. With Everwood, Berlanti created less a teen soap and more a family story about an ace surgeon who moves his family to the idyllic but tiny mountain town of Everwood in the wake of his wife’s death, one that combined serial and case-of-the-week storytelling that was elevated by strong characterizations both on the page and in the performance of the cast.
Treat Williams was the headliner, and Chris Pratt (and to a lesser extent Emily VanCamp) were the ones who broke out after the fact, but young Canadian actor Gregory Smith was the one who had to shoulder the majority of the show’s dramatic storylines. Not only was he at the center of the father-son strife that defined most of the first season, but Smith’s Ephram Brown was also the new kid in town who fell hard for the angelic blonde Amy Abbott (VanCamp), providing Everwood with its most enduring romantic storyline.
Like most long-running series predicated on a teen romance, Everwood had to set Ephram and Amy down a long a winding road of breakups and other boyfriends/girlfriends and roadblocks galore. But after four seasons of should-have-been-higher-rated television, Everwood came to a close, and with it came the chance for a definitive ending. A happy ending. A perfect ending.
It’s not just that Ephram and Amy got back together. It’s that they got back together in such grand, romantic fashion. She brought him a ferris wheel! Because she recognized the importance of personal history! Sigh. Everwood was so perfect. Happy birthday, Ephram.
