high school tv

I think the thing is that the people who would criticise them (maybe for the reasons you mention) avoid them. People like me. When I do see them they make me feel tiny, useless and depressed, so I try not to.

I have never seen any of these much talked about shows but I am reasonably sure that I would loathe them. I might have cable after I move; if I do I'll try to watch a show and then loathe it for you, Gareth.

I think the appeal is in the constant over-analysis of feelings and post-puberty relationship problems. Since this is what people are doing now in real life it is nice to see the attractive people having the same kind of problems - or worse - and being crippled by indecisiveness and stupidity.

Makes the demographic feel better for being equally indecisive and stupid.

As If = grate as you well kno gareth (you are in denial abt its grateness)

All these progs are grate they are Pinnacle of Human Melodramatic Culture

It's complete nostalgia for a time in our lives when attractiveness and popularity and having spots or not was the biggest concern in our lives. High school is hell at the time, but in retrospect, once you've got out in the "real world" and are dealing with trying to support yourself, dealing with bullies who have power over your paycheck instead of just your lunch hour, it really seems like heaven by comparison.

Never watched Dawsons Creek, tho, my crack was Beverly Hills 90210.

Come over here and say Hollyoaks and As if are EXECRABLE (spelling!!!) and I will punch you.

My favourite US school shows are the ones like Student Bodies and Saved by the Bell. No over-analysis of feelings there. Does USA High count as it is set in the least convincing Paris in the universe? I think I could recreate Paris better in a shoe box with lolly sticks.

Hey, Hollyoaks is watchable for one reason and one reason alone: THAT FINN IS SO FINE!!!

California Dreams: CLASSIC! Is there a soundtrack CD available?

Did Boy Meets World count as high-school tv? that Topanga...

So-called "high" "school" tv = Grange Hill, surely, which is beyond classic.

What annoys me about the American phenom (apart from Buffy, obviously): all the characters talk JUST LIKE Hope, Michael, Melissa etc from thirtysomething (which is also beyond classic, but probably deserves another thread), and they all listen to James Taylor and stuff! They're not young people at all! They're middle-aged baby boomers in photogenic bods.

yes, grange hill (and byker grove)=classic of course. but this is younger tv, i don't see this as the equivalent of dawsons/young americans etc, its a different thing (and good in its own right). there's a peculiar narcotizing effect achieved by dawsons et al (could be something to do with the self-consciously 'heavy' dialogue? )i can't see this in any uk tv.

criticizing dawsons seems to be beside the point. what would you criticize it for? mark seems to hit it on the head with the melodrama thing. melodrama is cool

and stevie, i would suggest buffy as something slightly different again, because buffy is quite clearly the best tv programme there has ever been

Buffy is not the same as high school dramas because it is something totally unique and different, which just happens to be set in a high school. (except it's a college now)

OK, if we were to have a ILM style "what TV show does everyone like" over here, we would have no problem, cause we'd all say Buffy, right?

I KNOW Buffy is sui generis - that is why I put in brackets (except Buffy)!! BTW my tiny mind was blown by the fact that the original choice to play TV Buffy was..... Katie Holmes!!!! SM-G was going to be Cordelia!!!!!! I would like to like in the parallel universe where that casting went ahead.

=like to LIVE, I mean

Degrassi was pretty cool there for a while. I think what I like about Dawsons, though it has become a bit predictable this season, was the idea that through these characters you could relive some of yr own awkward and ugly high school years in a way that you would've liked it to be, instead of the tawdry and shame-filled excuse for living it was for me.

I could never get into Dawsons, it just always struck me as being a little forced. That and the fact that James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson cannot act -- they seem to be less animated muppets.

Of course, 90201 was one of my favorites, but in that case bad acting was always one of the show's virtues. Everything was painted in such broad strokes, you have to be a fan of shameless melodrama to really appreciate it.

Degrassi was fun as well.

Did they change the Zip code all of a sudden or was 90201 a different show set in (looks up Zip codes on new fangled interwed) San Dimas. Yowsa - what prescience.

To sort out the difference twixt Grange Hill and Dawsons Creek what ages are the characters in Dawsons supposed to be. In Grange Hill of course the sixth formers are already sneaking into pubs of course.

I've seen half an episode of Buffy and thought it was OK. Does that count as "like"?

I was never as in love with Buffy as pretty much everyone else I know was. My wife actively loathes it. (Then again, this is the same woman who laughed hysterically all the way through "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo", turned off the TV and said, "Wow, I hated that." It's sometimes hard to get a read on the True Reaction.)

Did they change the Zip code all of a sudden or was 90201 a different show set in (looks up Zip codes on new fangled interwed) San Dimas. Yowsa - what prescience.

When it comes to numbers I am somewhat dyslexic. I'm lucky when I get my own phone number right.

Though to bring things ever so slightly back on topic, isn't Charmed one of the lamest copies of the Buffy/Angel aesthetic ever? Aaron Spelling should have retired after 90210.

The Kids of Degrassi Street - sample episode. Monochrome stills of brick walls, metal scrapyards and empty, haunted lollipop ladies' faces. Deeply melancholy but wearily dignified piano piece kicks in. Plot: Joey, a "slow" kid at school (milkbottle glasses type) is being bullied. His face is rubbed mercilessly in the snow; the children howl insults and cackle with morally uneducated laughter. He limps home and his violent dad slowly works up to kicking the shit out of him. More snow falls. Looks at a photograph of his dead mother (she understood him). A tear rolls down his cheek. Piano piece starts again. End credits roll. Chirpy, toothsome Phillip Schofield looks hollow eyed and restless as the camera cuts to him. Gordon the gopher shivers slightly but remains still. Everything in the world stares into the void.

At least that's how I remember it... But Degrassi Junior High.. what a riot of saturated colour and exploding hormones!

Wrt Buffy: similarly I've only seen fragments and it seemed OK.

Weird thing about transition between KO Degrassi Street and Degrassi JH: they both featured the many of same child actors BUT IN DIFFERENT ROLES. Not at all confusing, oh no.

Bah, _Dawson's_ etc. Vomitous. Another in the eight million reasons I've given up on TV period.

No, Tom: it counts as not trying.

It just seems unfair to compare Charmed to B&A somehow. a. Shannon Docherty = ubergoddess; b. Er, I dunno. I like Charmed: I always watch it, never tape it, never miss a beat if I miss an ep. Of course it's lame (except for the SpitLoveSpit/Smiths themetune). But so what? I don't need * another* Buffy cuz I've got BUFFY. And Shannon Docherty rocks: now more than ever. She's our Carrie Fisher.

90210 was pretty funny, but then it also strove to cover issues all the damn time so can be quite the bummer.

How about Clarissa Explains It All versus Sabrina the Teen Witch? I think Clarissa was the better show; I was a big fan of brother Ferguson, the odd incidental music/graphics and the parents were bland on a level that was almost at once fascinating and true to life. Sabrina has some quality but overall is much more eyecandy.

Charmed is annoying mainly due to the bad acting of the non-famous one and the terrible writing. The possibility of Tori Spelling joining the show should be funny/intruiging, though.

But Aaron Spelling shows have always thrived on bad writing, so I shouldn't complain too much.

Ah, but Sabrina has a TALKING CAT and is therefore better than any other teen show ever.

"A talking cat" = the VERY GREAT SALEM, ahem.

If anyone can remember the joke SALEM makes about not mixing cultural cooking styles, I will be indebted: I laffed so hard I forgot write it down. One of them was halva, I foget the other two: "Halva, [xx], [yy], ooah, WHAT was I thinking?"

I want to like Dawson's Creek, but it just doesn't quite do it for me (well, Katie Fuckin' Holmes does, but she's not in every scene). I say (short of putting Katie Fuckin' Holmes in every scene): replace VanderBeak and JJ w/guys from Lifehouse!! Guys from Lifehouse can do no wrong. That show would kick all sorts of ass if guys from Lifehouse starred. If they made "Hanging By A Moment" the theme song, I would watch it religiously.

I won't comment on B & A as you all know what I would say. Dawson's Creek was great to begin with and has slowly deteriorated ever since. Everyone complains that it's too wordy. I say that's what makes it fun - have you heard actual high school conversations? And you *still* want to make an accurate high school drama?

However it does bug me that the Pacey character, who has the vocabulary of an English professor, has trouble graduating. Unless American schools are *way* harder than Australian schools...

Interesting side-issue is the relationship between the teen shows and the teen movies, which share the same actors and (now that the run of horror films is coming to a close) the same plots. "Bring It On" in particular would make an excellent movie-length pilot for a show.

They would make good pilots, except of course the films have closure - which is something the TV shows never have (grr soap operas). Of course Clueless already is a series, and it is bland and insipid but as it is fundamentally a comedy it never really cuts to the tedium like DC can. And would you really want to see a series starring someone who looked a bit like, but wasn't, Kirsten Dunst?

I have the vocabulary and i almost failed high school. Math !

But that's the implausible part Anthony - he almost fails *English*.

Any series of Bring It On would *have* to retain Kirsten, and the more excuses for Eliza Dushku to be on TV the better. Ultimately though I think the reality is: spin-offs of bad movies = good. Spin-offs of good movies = bad. Therefore maybe the Kirsten Dunst spin-off should be from "Get Over It", which is mediocre but it has Sisqo and Vitamin C!!!! Which means it's still mediocre.

A) Everyone forgot My So Called Life and Freaks And Geeks, the two GREATEST TEEN SHOWS EVER.

B) "Get Over It" was GRATE, especially as I watched it with my grad-student-hip-zorn-listening-classical-greek-reading-culture-snob-friend. And it convinced him that the greatest culture in America today is indeed in the realm of teen films. The Midsummer's Night derived scenes just tripped him out. Fusion of high and low, et cet. Bring It On was better, tho, and certainly provided the high-concept-hook necc. for a spinoff series. Hey! Whatif the cheerleading squad traveled from competition to competition in a van and solved spooooky mysteries along the way?

These are filled with plesant and unfrighting flesh. It allows adolscents to discover their sexuailty without having to admit to lust. As well it gives some consumer wish fulfillment and a popculture "community". I like Dawsons because of Jack . But thats a pipe dream really. I liked 90210 for its lack of class conflict and the occasional lets help the poor epsiode. Which came off like a Judy Garland and Mickey Roony lets put on a show. Really i do not remmeber watchign any when i was a kid. mmmmmmmm OH ! James at 15 ! That was classic with the drugs and the awkard fumblign virginty . I love that 70s show but its not a drama . Could be though. Buffy and Angel are classic but again not teen dramas. Popualar was great as camp ( so was Grosse Pointe as a meta example)

i guess high school tv is addictive cos it gives us a chance to see how other people of our age are coping with the trials and tribulations of life. even if they're only characters!!! to the person who said that My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks are the greatest teen shows ever: i couldn't agree with you more. there were tons of halfway decent shows which provided the world with halfway decent entertainment. but only MSCL and Freaks and Geeks came even close to showing teen life how it really is. they didn't cover everything with gloss and glamour. they dared to tell us the truth. of course, Freaks and Geeks is more comedic, and doesnt quite match up to the classic status of MSCL. but both deserve much credit cos they're heads above the rest.

hey - see what RickyT said on 5th July last year and then LOOK AT HIM NOW!

um. said about Buffy, that is...