THE OC on its last legs?

It seems like one less cast member wasn’t the only thing cut down from the upcoming fourth season of THE OC. FOX confirmed Wednesday that it has ordered only 16 episodes of THE OC for the 06/07 season. A standard order for an hour-long network drama is usually 22 episodes. The fourth season is scheduled to start on November 2 (after FOX’s baseball commitment is over).

The shorter workload isn’t the only thing that will be different about the upcoming season. Aside from Marissa being killed off, the rest of the gang is off to college and Caitlin is returning to live with Julie Cooper/Nicol. It will be interesting to see if THE OC can weather the storm of bad publicity and poor stories that plagued the show in its third season.