Entertainment Weekly's THE 50 BEST TEEN TV SHOWS EVER

They should have just picked it back up with Fred Savage playing a 47 year old Kevin Arnold dealing with the Republican creep and tech-bubble crashes of his late-boomer friends ca. 2001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eFRdSGving

have watched a few of these but scanning through the list the only one I felt a flicker of warmth or affection towards is Welcome Back, Kotter so I voted for that

just feel totally burnt out on buffy, I have to acknowledge it as good and significant but I can't help but feel the proliferation of "whedonesque" dialogue was too high a price to pay (both in scripted productions but also in fandom and online)

Daria by a country mile

I had to vote for The Facts of Life for teaching me everything I know about girls.
I'm surprised that neither of the original Degrassi series is listed here, are they now regarded as embarrassing ancestors of the later version?
Lavator Shemmelpennick: Fifteen was a Canadian series noted for having its dialogue entirely improvised (based on pre-written outlines), which is why every conversation scene ended with reverse shots of the two actors staring at each other, trying to decide if they had come up with enough lines to convey what was supposed to be happening in that scene.

I watched the shit out of some Fifteen back in the day. Starring a young chipmunk-cheeked Ryan Reynolds!

Comments upthread about Winder Years pretty otm. Even at the time, I thought Kevin Arnold was a pretty big turd. It's a pretty turd-ish name. 'Kevin Arnold'.

My So-Called Life was a great show and so was Buffy, but I felt such a rush of affection when I saw the O.C. in the list that I may have to vote for it.

post u mean "Kevin Amold"

kevin's older brother and older sister were both right. his sister for obvious reasons, but his older brother had to deal with kevin. it's no wonder he had to call him an asswipe all the time

haven't watched wonder years in a while but in my head the older brother's name is Jason and he's always like "good morning, asswipe" to kevin as he joins the kitchen table

lol, that's a very polite way to address an asswipe

actually maybe he was always addressing kevin's seat cushion?

His older brother called him a butthead all the time (pretty sure you couldn't say "asswipe" on network TV in 1988), and the actor's name was Jason Hervey, previously seen as the child actor in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

And in back to the future. "What's a rerun??"

I only just watched Freaks and Geeks in its entirety for the first time earlier this year and it was...pretty good but not great? I think an essential element that I found lacking and that is most definitely present in my favorites of the genre (your My So-Called Lifes and your Gilmore Girlses) is the sense of getting a peek behind the curtain at the interior lives of the characters. Much of the show just felt kinda arms-length, like they didn't want us to know the characters too intimately or understood what really made them tick. I'll acknowledge that there were some exceptions (like Lindsay's grandma dying and driving her to rebel (although that wasn't really referenced past the first ep), Sam dealing with his dad's divorce). Nick was probably the most developed character. I dunno, it was well-observed and entertaining but it just didn't suck me in.

the star power on freaks and geeks is just unfair, an unimpeachable show for that alone

xp i think that’s a fair critique of freaks and geeks though i wonder if they would have gotten there if they’d had more time.

I found every character on F&G dislikable, a core piece of the teen TV world is that even villains aren't supposed to be wholly terrible (even if it requires a gay dad controversy for redemption).

that gay dad episode was so good

Usually the 1st season of a long running show isn't good relative to when it hits its prime, so it's a shame we never got a chance to see "prime" Freaks and Geeks. Yet we got 27 seasons of friggin Everybody Loves Raymond.

everybody loves raymond. everybody. right?

I found every character on F&G dislikable, a core piece of the teen TV world is that even villains aren't supposed to be wholly terrible (even if it requires a gay dad controversy for redemption).

― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, September 4, 2021 5:49 PM (seventeen minutes ago)

kids suck!

Mainly inconsistencies with characters from season to season (and sometimes week to week).

I watched a bunch of Boy Meets World episodes recently and funnily enough, there's a similar diregard for continuity (Corey Matthews is Kevin Arnold's little brother irl). I don't think it matters that much, the show is heavily stylized and the dialog is strangely expositional. But clearly it wasn't designed for binge watching.

Only seen about half of these shows.

Any excuse to post this will do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXipPKsbUHA

But clearly it wasn't designed for binge watching.

This is a great point. Not only could you not just pull up an entire series on Netflix or whatever, but you couldn't even really buy shows by the season until dvd—some series came out on vhs, but only very select titles like Twin Peaks, etc—so the producers of these dgaf about continuity because why bother.

Freaks and Geeks was the best fuiud

I loved F&G so much two decades ago I am a little afraid to even think about it now, especially given the later careers of the various principals.

same here

I’m old. Square Pegs. The gay surfer guy with the headphones was my hero. And never forget Buffy and her little Nicaraguan orphan.

my niece was just a little younger than Rory growing up, and she also had that super-bonded relationship with her mother (my sister). They loved Gilmore Girls so it meant a lot to me

Not only could you not just pull up an entire series on Netflix or whatever, but you couldn't even really buy shows by the season until dvd—some series came out on vhs, but only very select titles like Twin Peaks, etc—so the producers of these dgaf about continuity because why bother

Kind of related, but I was recently going back though random WKRP's, and was reminded that they had to do a clip show for their 8th or 9th ep because they'd been taken off the air for a couple months, and that was the easiest & cheapest way to relaunch the show.

Just remembered that Topanga on BMW had like three different sets of parents (one of her dads was Peter Tork!).

I was hardly a regular viewer, but I don't remember Boy Meets World being anything but terrible. I do have to wonder, though: does it represent possibly the last time that one of these shows could be so blatantly homoerotic without (as far as I can remember) ever feeling the need to seriously acknowledge the existence of queerness?

Out of the dumb stuff I watched passively as a kid - Dawson's Creek

Out of the stuff I actively searched for in later life - Big Mouth

Buffy or Daria. Probably going to the former but I hope the latter gets some votes. Not seen any of the most recent ones - I sort of liked the look of Derry Girls from the ads but no idea if it actually would be for me.

I watched a couple of episodes of Derry Girls and enjoyed it, thought the cast were talented, but ultimately I’m not in the mood for that kind of shit now. It gets harder to watch these shows the further away you get from your own teens. When I was in college I watched 90210 and Saved by the Bell ironically, with no emotional connection to them. Beavis and Butthead I thought was legitimately great though. Daria looked interesting at the time but I kind of felt I already knew everything about the culture it was trying to comment on.

Big Mouth easily.

Gilmore Girls or My So-Called Life, no contest.

Although with Gilmore Girls I very quickly tired of anything to do with Rory's love life (so the main "teen" aspect of the show). I much preferred all of Lorelei's relationships (w/ Rory, w/ her boyfriends, w/ the grandparents) and the quirky bucolic small-town semi-plots. A very comforting show.

Big Mouth easily.

― bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Sunday, 5 September 2021 21:43 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

FP

is there anything problematic about Big Mouth?

big mouth is genuinely one of the most aesthetically repellent things i've ever attempted to watch lol

the Sex Education snub is what you'd expect from a US-centric list but I'd have probably voted F&G anyway, a show that doesn't need to hammer home the interior lives of its characters but expresses them with exquisite subtlety

American Vandal S1 was amazing, got about 2 minutes into S2

one of the most aesthetically repellent things

Can't argue with that. Still almost voted for it.

a whole show about horrifically ugly children constantly jacking off

Step By Step isn't on the list bruh

Voted for Daria but hadnt spotted Big Mouth was in the list dammit

Also why is Degressi nextgen there but not Degrassi HIgh?

Because EW staff skews millennial rather than gen x-er I assume. What a bunch of broomheads.

Yeah, there's like one old person on staff who threatened to resign if Happy Days, The Facts of Life, Welcome Back Kotter, and Square Pegs weren't included.

tbh, as much as I love Sally Field, including Gidget feels like pandering to the over 60s in the readership. It was NOT good. If they were going back that far, they should've opted for the Patty Duke Show.

I never felt like Happy Days was a "teen show" in the way the others on the list were.