Why is this a foreign concept to some people? You play games to have fun, when you stop having fun you move on. I've seen this sentiment a couple times and it's kinda upsetting.

One Tree Hill was my favorite during this time. The OC was good too, although after the first season you kinda got the impression the writers didn't know what to do, and the third season was awful.

If you want another show similar I'd recommend Dawson's Creek. One Tree Hill was also really good, but it's kind of hard to reminisce about given that the creator turned out to be a creep.

I strongly dislike games with a "save anywhere" feature for this reason. I remember playing Oddworld Stranger's Wrath and saving during boss battles and it just was not a fun experience. I recently played Quake on PS4 and despite it having such a feature, I only save between levels, it's just more fun for me.

My go to shows were Muppet Babies and Ghostbusters and I guess TMNT too. This was when I was really young though. I actually don't remember much about network Saturday morning cartoons, when I was seven I discovered Nickelodeon and then that was that. Of the three shows I mentioned Muppet Babies is the only one I can really recall and that's because it played on Nickelodeon also.