Hey guys! How was everyone's weekend? Mine was pretty great, I had a video chat with an old friend that I hadn't seen in six years so that was cool. Other than that I got some reviews up as well. Today I'm going to be talking about the teen drama TV shows of the 2000s. Specifically the ones that I watched during that era. I'll be looking at seven of them: Degrassi: The Next Generation (I'm Canadian, don't judge), Smallville, The O.C., One Tree Hill, 90210, Everwood, and Glee. I'm not going to go in any real order, but I'm going to save Degrassi for last because I have alot to say about it, and it might end up having to be a post of it's own later on down the line. In the meantime though, let's get into it.
I decided to start with Smallville because it's the show that has the most lasting impact on geek culture. Not only did it lay the foundation for everything that DC Comics and Warner Bros. has produced in the last nine years, from Arrow to Titans, Doom Patrol, and Stargirl, but Smallville showed that superheroes could be successful in an "adult", primetime series and not just in animation. It opened the gates for shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Marvel Netflix shows, and every series that Marvel is doing for Disney+ right now. I only watched it up to season 5, because it moved from CityTV to YTV and we didn't get YTV at the time. So by the time we did get YTV again, the show was over. Sure, Smallville didn't break social boundaries like some of the other shows I'm going to be talking about, but it did bring DC Comics back to TV in a way that only the Bruce Timm produced animated shows had done up to that point.
Part of the reason I watched the show for as long as I did was that I could really relate to Clark. Especially in the first season when he's just starting high school and discovering his powers and heritage. He was the only one with his abilities and if people discovered those abilities, he'd be constantly hounded and so he keeps a low profile. I couldn't hide my disabilities when I started high school and so I did get bullied in high school. The worst being in grade nine. And so I could relate to Clark in that way. Especially since he was awkward around girls, and so was I. The other reason I watched Smallville for as long as I did is because John Schneider, who played Bo Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard, played Jonathan Kent, and I loved seeing him dispense wisdom to Clark in the way that Denver Pyle, as Uncle Jesse, dispensed wisdom to Schneider, as Bo, on The Dukes of Hazzard.
While I started Smallville from the beginning and watched it until midway through the series, I didn't start watching The O.C. until midway through the series, and watched it until the very end, and then went back and caught up on the first two seasons after the fact. I actually started watching The O.C. because a friend of mine at school, who was a huge fan of the show, told me that George Lucas was going to guest star in that week's episode as himself. So I watched the episode, having had absolutely no interest in it previously, and the stupid show hooked me. I mean I couldn't really relate to the majority of the characters, except for Seth, but the show was funny, and it ended up being my first encounter with several actors like Ben McKenzie, who would later go on to play Jim Gordon on Gotham, Adam Brody, Willa Holland, who would go on to play Thea Queen on Arrow, and Rachel Bilson, who guest starred in a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother. This show was also my second encounter with Peter Gallagher, as he appeared in Mr. Deeds, Mischa Barton, as she appeared in the music video for Enrique Iglesias's song, "Addicted", Tate Donovan, who voiced the titular character in Disney's 1997 movie Hercules, Alan Dale, who played the Romulan Praetor in Star Trek Nemesis, and Melinda Clarke, who played a Suliban in "Broken Bow", the pilot episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. Of course she had previously played Jessica Priest in the 1997 movie, Spawn, so that was interesting to watch after I'd seen her on Enterprise, Firefly, and The O.C. So I enjoyed watching it even though it got pretty ridiculous at times. The next two shows I'm going to be talking about are ones that I either watched randomly or only watched for it's first season before dropping off it.
I didn't watch a whole lot of One Tree Hill. It was mostly the earlier seasons that I caught episodes of in syndication in the mid 2000s. I did see one or two episodes from the last couple of seasons, but I didn't watch it very much. Or very much of it. This series was the start of Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush's careers. At least in terms of being a breakout role for Chad Michael Murray. I haven't seen Sophia Bush in anything since the 2012 sitcom, Partners, which also starred Brandon Routh, but that's just because she's not in anything I'm interested in. I've seen Chad Michael Murray as recently as Agent Carter in 2015 and 2016, though apparently he's been on Riverdale recently in a recurring role. But other than Murray, the only cast member from One Tree Hill that I've seen recently was Barbara Alyn Woods, because she played Dana Caldwell's mother in the first season of The Goldbergs and Dana is played by her daughter, Natalie Alyn Lind. Barbara Alyn Woods and Moira Kelly are the only cast members that I knew previously as Barbara Alyn Woods had been in a season 2 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation back in 1989, and in 1997 to 2000 she played Diane Szalinski, Wayne Szalinski's wife on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The Series. And Moira Kelly voiced Nala as an adult in The Lion King and it's sequel and midquel.
I think Everwood is the show that I watched the most of in terms of episodes. In fact I'm pretty sure I watched the entire series when it originally aired. It only had four seasons and I'm pretty sure I watched most of, if not all of, all four seasons. I haven't seen it since it ended in 2006 so I don't remember a whole lot about it. I remember that the star of the show, Treat Williams, appeared in The Empire Strikes Back and that Greggory Smith, who was not only the lead actor in Small Soldiers, but also starred in the Canadian police procedural, Rookie Blue, AND has directed a ton of episodes for all of the Arrowverse shows. Also this was my introduction to Chris Pratt, and Emily VanCamp.
90210 is a completely different story. I watched it for one season and that was it. The only reason why I watched it for the first season was because I'd just watched a few random episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 in reruns before it started, and was intrigued to see a continuation of it. This was back when a continuation of a show that had ended it's original run, meant a mostly new cast with original cast members coming back occasionally for guest appearances instead of a full cast reunion for a continuation like they do nowadays. I wasn't all that interested in it, having never seen Beverly Hills, 90210 except for those two or three random episodes that I caught in reruns and even though Shenae Grimes, who played Darcy during the back end of the seasons that I watched of Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Lori Loughlin were part of the cast, I couldn't relate to any of the characters, it felt like more of the same that I'd just finished with watching The O.C., and I didn't have any nostalgia for it being a continuation of Beverly Hills, 90210 for me to continue with the series after the first season.
As for Glee, I remember seeing part of an episode back in 2009 or 2010 when I was still watching shows on Global, but I mostly ignored it until after a couple of it's cast members, Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist, were cast on The Flash and Supergirl in 2013 and 2015 respectively. I don't remember what episode I saw but it was still early enough in the first season that Rachel Berry annoyed me enough that I had to mute the TV until the show was over. I wish I was joking, but I'm not because since I have the entire series on DVD and Blu-ray, I've watched several other season 1 episodes and season 1 Rachel is so much more annoying than season 6 Rachel is. I'll get into that more when I review the series in the future. Even Jane Lynch wasn't enough to keep me around watching Glee.
And finally we get to Degrassi: The Next Generation. I loved this show growing up. Even though it was five or six seasons into the show by the time I got around to watching it, it was on Monday to Friday in reruns so I actually caught up on the series and then I watched the entirety of season 7 as it aired. Season 7 is where I dropped off of it as I was in college and the original characters were being replaced by a new cast of kids. Jimmy left, because the actor who played him, Aubrey Graham began his music career as Drake (yes guys, Drake started out on Degrassi), and many of the other characters had already been written out of the show because they were approaching the end of college or had been killed off or whatever the case was. I also didn't care about the new characters as much either so the series moved on without me and continued for another seven seasons before ending and being replaced by Degrassi: Next Class, which ran for 4 seasons on Netflix.
If you don't know what Degrassi is, it's a Canadian teen drama franchise that began in 1979 with four short films before becoming The Kids of Degrassi Street in 1982. This first series ended in 1986 and was replaced in 1987 by Degrassi Junior High and then Degrassi High in 1989, which ended in 1991. Then after a ten year absence, the original show's creators developed Degrassi: The Next Generation, which included some characters from the previous two shows as parents and teachers of the new generation of kids that I watched in the 2000s.
I've never seen Degrassi Junior High or Degrassi High, so I don't know to what extent they went, but Degrassi: The Next Generation, which was shortened to just Degrassi in the show's tenth season, is a show I liked alot, because not only did they cast actors who were actually the ages they were supposed to be playing, instead of twenty something year olds playing younger, but they also touched on issues that the other teen dramas either weren't allowed to touch, didn't want to touch, or touched on them in very shallow ways. There were also always consequences for a character's actions that went beyond that episode. Like if Spinner Mason bullied a kid in an episode, it would end up being a major problem for episodes or seasons to come. Or if Emma Nelson did something embarrassing in an episode, or got caught doing something she shouldn't've been, then those consequences would carry over for the rest of the season or even into the next season, depending on how bad the situation was.
Rape, parental abuse, financial instability, death, pregnancy, drug abuse/addiction, alcohol abuse/addiction, toxic friendships, suicide, homosexuality, Transgender issues, and disabilities, both mental and physical, were all things that this show touched upon. In addition to the usual puberty, schoolwork, and homework problems kids in every TV show have ever had. And they actually talked about these issues for episodes at a time, rather than just use them for an episode and then move on to the next problem, as many other shows did at the time. They weren't preachy about it, mostly, and they did it in a way that started conversations rather than give definitive answers to any of the issues. Plus, the characters, at least the ones from my era of the show (seasons 1-7), were all fairly relatable. Especially since the writers did their best to show all of the kids were going through the same things, whether they were shy, outgoing, popular, unpopular, a cheerleader, a jock, disabled, a geek, or whatever they were.
Degrassi: The Next Generation was also the first show I ever saw that showed disabled people in a positive light, and did away with ableism as well. Mostly. They didn't always get it right. There's an autistic kid that comes in around season 8 or season 9 named Connor. In the show they say he has Asperger's but that's what they labeled it as back then, now they just lump it onto the autism spectrum. But during my era of the show, there was a character named Craig who was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder during one of his earliest seasons (he was originally introduced in season 2), and they only touched on it on the surface with the other characters, namely his friends, being a little awkward around him post-diagnosis. I see only a little bit of ableism in play there, but only to show that kids of my generation didn't generally encounter people with autism or Bipolar disorder. I'm autistic but I never met anyone else who was in elementary school, middle school or high school. ADD and ADHD definitely, but not another autistic kid like me. However there's another example of ableism on the show towards people in wheelchairs.
In season 4, Jimmy Brooks, played by Drake, was shot by a kid that had been bullied by everyone in the school, leading to a school shooting. Jimmy was paralyzed and ended up in a wheelchair, or on crutches, for the rest of his time on the show. In the season 5 finale, Jimmy had a crush on Ellie Nash, played by Stacey Farber, but didn't know if he should ask her out because of him being in a wheelchair. Ashley Kerwin, Jimmy's ex-girlfriend, and one of his closest friends, and him are talking about it, and when Jimmy tells her why he thinks Ellie isn't into him, Ashley says, "Yeah, but until you mentioned it, I completely forgot that you were even in a chair." Which is a bit insulting. If I were in my chair and a friend said that to me, I'd be upset at them for it because you can't just forget that I'm in a wheelchair. So for a character to say that to a disabled person who uses a wheelchair, it kinda shows that there is a bit of ableism there, at least on the part of the writer of that episode for writing that line. Even if it was unintentional.
But for the most part, they do a great job at showing disabled people front and centre. Too bad none of the actors they hired to portray disabled people were actually disabled themselves. Jimmy's girlfriend, Trina in season 7, was played by Terra Vnesa, who played Melissa Chapman on the TV show version of Animorphs, and she's not disabled. It's not okay, but I understand that the 2000s wasn't the time for disabled actors to be plentiful on TV or in movies so I'm not going to blame this show for it when EVERY show and movie was that way back then.
Oh and did I mention that Degrassi is a Canadian show, in development, in production and in setting? Well, it is, and that's probably why it was my favourite of all of the teen dramas that I mentioned in this blog post. I could relate to it way more than I could the other shows, including Smallville, which was produced here in Canada, but was developed and set in the United States. I could go on and on about Degrassi, but I think that will be a separate blog post at a later time, maybe once I've watched the first seven seasons, as all fourteen seasons are on the Degrassi official YouTube channel.
Alright guys that's gonna be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow with my next comic book review. I'm not quite sure what issue I'm going to review yet, but I have a number of options in mind. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment