05. ask me anything: teen dramas

anonymous prompted: teen dramas? or if that's to broad what are your favourite teen shows, and which are your least favourite and why? or how do you think the genre has evolved from the days of Beverly Hills 90120, to the 90's, to the 00's, to now?

For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to include any teen shows with supernatural elements (sorry, Buffy and Sabrina!) because that’s like a genre and an entry unto itself. I’m also going to try to focus on shows that are primarily teen-centric, not where the teen stuff is only a portion of the whole story (like, say, Gilmore Girls) or where the coming of age happens over a longer period of time (Boy Meets World). Leaving those kinds of shows out means I am absolutely painting an incomplete picture of the development of teen dramas (BtVS is obviously so instrumental to the genre) but I wanted to keep the focus relatively narrow.

Something I find interesting is that with the exception of one (and that one show has a pretty distinct hook), all of these kinds of normal teen coming of age shows are basically defunct.

So, in chronological order, shows that I feel mark the evolution of the art form we call the Teen Drama:


I have talked about 90210 a few times on my journal, in particular about how it is the OG of all teen dramas. There were teen movies throughout the 80s that really set the scene for the show, of course, but executives didn’t even think they’d get an audience for a show like this! They tried to appeal to PARENTS with PARENTAL DRAMA for fucks sake (do I have them to thank for every teen show since that has needlessly focused on the drama of parents? ugh).

Now, I am, of course, not stupid. 90210 is a terrible show by any good TV standards. Bad acting, bad writing, ridiculous storylines, total relic of its time in just about every way possible. I can understand why people now would find it hard to get into. But for me, I love camp. I love cheesy stuff that has no idea it’s cheesy, or maybe it does juuuust enough to wink ever so slightly at the audience but not enough to actually be quote-unquote Good. That’s just who I am. Give me Donna Martin’s second stalker any day of the week.

But this is not to discount all the totally influential things 90210 did. And I certainly wouldn’t discount it if only because of how hugely popular it was – silly as it may have been, there was something here that was hugely appealing to teens and I think there was more to it than boners popped for Jason Priestly. The show got more and more ridiculous as it went on (ah, remember the time Kelly joined a cult or Donna was held hostage by yet another stalker live on the college’s TV station?) but the early seasons had a heavy focus on more general teen “issues” (peer pressure! sex! shoplifting! eating disorders! shitty parents! drugs! RACISM!), often with a kind of heavy-handed lesson involved and everyone ending the episode all smiles. With the exception of Canada’s 80s Degrassi (oh, we will get to Degrassi don’t you worry), I’m not certain stuff like that had really been on television before, at least not from the point of view of the teen – as opposed to the PoV of the parent trying to figure out how to deal with their teen.

And the salaciousness definitely is important too. These were all rich, pretty, skinny white kids wearing stylish-for-the-time clothes and putting their faces together. That had its own definite appeal. I mean, it’s a soap opera. Everyone always loves a soap opera. It’s like how the shittiest stuff often reaches the most popular heights: it’s not really good or smart enough to challenge you and you get to live vicariously through it while still feeling totally safe. Plus all soaps know just where the reset button is at all times, so anything that really hurts you is just one click away from being undone if the writers so choose. I think there’s validity in that kind of stuff as much as anything else (but at the same time, I don’t think anything is gained from pretending that kind of stuff is better than it is either).

90210 definitely had a very obvious push-pull between how the writers wanted to deal with sex and how the network wanted to deal with it, exemplified by Brenda losing her virginity, bragging about it, and then immediately after having a pregnancy scare/breaking up with Dylan. The show also had a weird relationship with sexual assault and rape that I’ve always kind of wanted to delve into, but this isn’t the post for it so I’m going to refrain for now. Another day, maybe; sexual assault on teen shows could definitely be its own post, because there’s some stuff to unpack there for sure.

Personally, what do I like about it? Probably the same thing as teens in the 90s did. The clothes. The romantic drama. Getting to hate certain characters and rooting for other ones. That feeling of being a little kid watching it with my big sister. Nostalgia. And Luke Perry.
I really debated putting Pete & Pete on here because I don’t really think of it as a teen show despite the fact that older Pete had some classic 90s teen misadventures (though, was he in junior high or high school? I don’t remember), i.e. crushes and afterschool jobs etc etc. But I kept it on the list because I think, due to its skewing younger than most of the shows on this list, it represents a nice kind of idyllic innocence about childhood and growing up that I think is important in its own way. A lot of teen stuff likes to focus on how ~scandalous~ shit can be but I like that really…not necessarily realistic, but just sort of…quaint? Boy Meets World qualifies too. I don’t really think Pete & Pete was a big enough show outside of its cult following to have a drastic impact on teen drama history or anything, but I thought it was worth representing. I won’t mind a little bit of returning innocence and surrealism.

I actually…do not really care for this show. Admittedly, this is mostly because I find non-Juliet Claire Danes so grating that I just want to shake her, and also Angela’s mom was sooo annnnoyingggggomgggg. I did however adore Rayanne and Ricky and Sharon (??? the other friend?). And despite my personal feelings about the show itself, it was undeniably a turning point in the genre, one that took the “realism” of those sweeter, more slice-of-life shows and blended it with the issues-based, slightly edgier stuff to create a more honest-feeling whole. Absolutely an integral stepping stone in the process. And it’s really unfortunate that it didn’t continue if only because I think it’s one of the very few ‘normal girl comes of age’ stories out there.


I think Daria is my favorite show. It’s at least in the top five. I identify with it so strongly despite the fact that Daria and I are probably not very alike, outside of having rocked a heavy fringe and glasses throughout various points in my life. But I do identify with the show strongly regardless; there was a line in the pilot episode of You’re the Worst that summed up a lot of what I find I love in a lot of media, which boiled down to “funny and true and mean.” That’s where I think a lot of Daria’s appeal lands, not just in the very quick humor but in the honesty of it and the lack of preciousness without being utterly nihilistic either – you get the feeling that the show is letting the characters figure their shit out as much as people have to figure their shit out, which is not comforting and sometimes shitty and always uncertain, but it resonates too. So certain things – Daria and Jane’s friendship, the family dynamics, all of “Boxing Daria,” and Daria’s crush on Trent – just feel so real, but also cleverer than real life and with just enough distance thanks to the animation. (Part of why I think shows like BoJack Horseman can effortlessly go so emotional and so dark without alienating the comedic aspects of the show is because of the animation – and, you know, how BoJack is an actual fuckin’ horse.)



DC is weird for me right now. It’s definitely a big nostalgia bomb because it’s another show I watched with my older sister, and then I went through a big rewatching obsession phase during high school. But now I just…I feel nothing about it? It’s really weird? I loved Jen, I loved Pacey, I loved Pacey and Joey together; I still get it, I know why I felt that way, but as of right now…I got nothing?

But I do think every show is like another step. The earnestness of capturing genuine growing up was obviously Of Great Import in the 90s. It’s funny, because I think it’s a trend that circled back around on itself. People got sick of the overwrought earnestness and it brought us back to the trashy enjoyment of Teens Behaving Badly (Gossip Girl, Skins) and now I think people are tired of that, too. Teen TV shows and movies are probably in the biggest lull they’ve had in decades (in terms of “normal” teen stuff, i.e. no catchy hook or supernatural elements), which is interesting. I’m sure it’ll circle back because everything does, but it is interesting that we’ve sort of run through our well of options for now, lol.


Okay let’s talk about Degrassi, motherfuckers. I haven’t done a total rewatch of my crew of kids, but I did a half-rewatch a year or two ago and I was taken aback by how genuinely good I thought the show was? Like, there’s the silliness of issue-based storylines and some definite cheesiness but I remembered it being a lot worse than it was. I actually found myself very grateful that I had a show like this growing up and very sad that tweens don’t have an equivalent now (from what I’ve heard, Degrassi sorta went off the rails at some point, which most long-running shows do). While there was still some laughably bad stuff (internet stranger danger!!!!), I thought it handled storylines like Paige’s rape and Manny’s abortion with maturity and responsibility without being preachy. I mean, can you imagine a show on US television where a fourteen year old girl would be allowed to want an abortion, have an abortion, and then be relieved that she had one? With zero blowback from the decision? I can barely imagine an adult woman being allowed to have a storyline like that.

So even despite the stranger danger and HORRIFIC early 00s fashion and the aboots, I honestly think that era of Degrassi deserves to be considered one of the greats of the genre.



Confession: I have only ever seen season one of this show! I hated Seth and Summer together so much that I could never bear the thought of having to put up with more of their relationship, and also I made it one episode into season two before being HORRIFIED by how terrible it was. That was all years ago now, and whether it was the correct decision or no, I am content to let this show exist in one season of excellence in my mind. I think The O.C. definitely continued on the more emotional, heartfelt train of previous shows, and it was probably the perfect bridge in that it had all that genuine stuff but also had the vicarious enjoyment of rich people, the big events and big drama, high stakes combined with real emotional beats. Also boy led, which makes me wonder if that’s why people hold it in such high esteem for its quality. I mean, I’ve seen people who never gave a shit about teen dramas praise The O.C. and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s a show with two male leads.


Ah, Skins. Similarly to DC, I can remember my intensity about Skins, how deeply emotionally invested I was, and how now, I just feel nothing when I think about it. I really loved those characters! But idk now I just have no emotional connection to it anymore. It’s funny that Skins and Gossip Girl essentially had the same running time (not counting those three-off Skins episodes for obvious reasons) and, though it manifested very differently, I do think in many ways they were shows of a type. They were both shows that, on the surface, were ALL ABOUT the bad behavior and the shock factor, while underneath were these really damaged kids. Skins’ ability to hit the reset button probably worked to its advantage, the way AHS has been able to lure me in every single year thanks to its ostensible newness, but now that time has passed I would say that the second season of every gen was pretty much shit. I mean, blah blah good moments blah blah occasional high points: shit. I do think Skins was better at selling the dichotomy of Big Drama and Surface Vapidity with Underlying ~Emotions~ than Gossip Girl, at least in part because it edged gritty whereas GG edged campy.


All that stuff I was talking about with The O.C.? I think that’s what people were expecting with Gossip Girl. They – she says, like she was not a member of the viewing audience – thought that the gowns and plot machinations and the ridiculous framing device (I get that Gossip Girl is the point of Gossip Girl but I am more ugh @ that bish all the time) were just a glittery frame there to detract from the Real Stuff. But at the end of the day, there was little to no real stuff at all. It would be easy to say part of that was creator disinterest – Schwartz obviously did not give a single solitary fuck about this show – but I don’t think that’s the case, because Savage and Safran were clearly big fans of the show and what they were doing with it. I am still just not sure what that was? Because…like, was the point to just be a ridiculous soap with no substance? I don’t know. I still don’t get that vibe from it. I don’t think it intended to be a dark, nihilistic pile of shit either; like, as far as those behind the scenes people are concerned, the show probably ended super happily. So I don’t know. I’ve spoken a bit before on how it’s the closest spiritual descendent to 90210, and I still think that’s true in a lot of ways. The vapidity – while still thinking they were accomplishing something deep as hell – and also the plot jumping, the rich people glorification, I think there’s a lot of crossover there. But Gossip Girl also had around ten to twenty years of genuinely good teen dramas in between that obviously had some kind of effect (even if it was just in its delusions of grandeur). Lol for a show I have spent so much time focusing on, this feels like the least eloquent of all of these sections, blah.


Interestingly, this show is the most reminiscent of 90s classics and it’s set in the 90s, so that’s probably not an accident. But it took the best of those shows and brought it a step farther. I don’t think I’ve ever reacted so viscerally to a teen show before, like. I wouldn’t even count this as my favorite on the list but I would sob straight through every single episode. It hit me in such a gut place that absolutely no other show on this list has. For me personally this would win Realest. I always think about that moment early in the series (was it the first episode?) where Rae is kind of tagging along with the group but she’s not a part of them yet so she’s just hanging back and watching them have fun and admiring them, and it felt like such a REAL moment to me. Genuinely think this show was the best at capturing the conflicting messy whole of teenage existence.


I kind of love Faking It despite the fact that perhaps I should not, and also all the dudes are f u g l y. It is probably the last of the Normal Teen shows (there’s Awkward, but I don’t watch that) and even so it has a hook that I think it kind of to its detriment even though it managed to do pretty good things with it. This show is like when you find one of those super cliche tropey fanfics but it’s actually really well written so you get hooked anyway. I really do think it’s a clever, funny show with great lead actresses and a focused, consistent voice. That said, here are the cons: the boys are garbage, the fake lesbians thing is REALLY hard to get over, why is the entire show creepily blasé about adults having relationships with teenagers, and WHY in GOD’S NAME are they SO RELUCTANT to just LET AMY BE A GODDAMN LESBIAN JESUS CHRIST.

As for where it falls in the history of teen dramas, I think it is more of a teen sitcom than anything else. It takes a step back from the edginess and Big Drama that defined the last decade and brings things down to a more even keel. It’s light, it’s funny, but it is still able to sell the emotional beats convincingly. Where do we go from here? I don’t know. I’d like to see Netflix take on a teen drama.


Lol these sections got shorter and shorter as I went along. I did not realize I had THAT much to say about 90210. I have issues.

(Also I realized as I was finishing this post that I forgot Glee entirely, and then I just continued to forget it, because that’s for the best. Faking It is definitely following more in Glee’s footsteps than the other shows, though I think it does a lot of things better. Not all, but a fair number.)

(All gifs stolen from tumblr!)