Atticus   

For a 36-year-old man to admit he’ll miss a TV show is sad enough. It’s something on a whole other plane of embarrassment to confess the program aired on the unofficial network of teen angst, The WB.

Last night I finally watched the episode from Monday night that I’d set the DVR to record while I was out of town. At the conclusion, I was stunned to learn next week’s installment won’t be a season finale. It’s a two-hour series finale.

So on June 5, I’ll be saying goodbye to Everwood.

How did I get hooked on something that shares dial space with Smallville, 7th Heaven and Supernatural? It’s because, like Ed, Gilmore Girls and Northern Exposure, the show featured the lives of a handful of characters, connected by blood, romance or friendship, in a small town. In this case, it was a fabricated spot on the map in rural Colorado and centered on the Brown family.

I love good writing. And good writing, to me, means character development done so well that fictional people seem to take on lives of their own.

But all along, Everwood likely had an uphill battle. By including discussions about teen pregnancy, teen sex, homosexuality and abortion at different points across the four seasons, many parents who use resources such as Focus on the Family’s Plugged In probably followed the advice of those publications rather than screening the show themselves and forbid their kids from watching. Furthermore, most adults probably steered clear of Everwood because The WB marketed it in a way that made it appear as the domain of only teen-agers, a la Dawson’s Creek.

Despite those challenges, the show apparently had an audience twice the size of the one for One Tree Hill, which The CW opted to keep. And critics have loved it. Entertainment Weekly has called the “family drama” one of TV’s best.

But just ask Ron Howard what that gets you.

Related: Series finale trailer