One season, eighteen episodes, cancelled in 2000. Set in 1980, about a high schooler drifting from the academically successful group toward the kids who smoke behind the gym.
What it refuses
Wish fulfilment. Nobody gets transformed. The unpopular kids stay unpopular. The one who wants to be cool does not become cool; she becomes someone slightly different, and it is not clear it is an improvement.
Most teen shows are built on the promise that adolescence resolves. This one suggests that mostly it just ends.
The best episodes
The one where a character joins a team he is bad at, and the show lets him stay bad at it. The one about a first attempt at a party. The one where the guidance counsellor is right about something and it is still unbearable to hear.
These are small episodes. None of them have a plot that would summarise well.
Why it was cancelled
Because it is not aspirational and the teenagers look like actual teenagers. Both of those are the reason it lasted.
Content note
Drug use, bullying, a storyline about a parent’s illness. Not sensationalised — that is rather the point.
Commitment
Eighteen episodes, about fifteen hours. It ends without resolution, and the final scene is a good one anyway.
Newsletter
Growing up, one season at a time
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