They Weren’t Ready for My So-Called Life

Image by Nick M.W. (FFP.com)

By R.J.F.

What people didn’t want to know about teens in ’94 could be found in one show, a show that never got a chance to survive.

When a show only lasts for one season, it’s probably for one of two reasons. Reason number one: it sucked. It probably had preposterous plot lines, bad acting, terrible writing, and was a waste of studio money. Reason number two: it was ahead of its time. The show more than likely couldn’t find a solid audience because people just didn’t get it. My So-Called Life was a single-season show that couldn’t find a big enough audience, more than likely because it was tackling teen issues that TV audiences weren’t ready to accept, and it was canceled after one season.

It premiered in 1994; I was only 12 or 13 at the time. I vaguely remember catching an episode here or there, but I was way too young to understand it. I’m sure some obscure TV station picked it up after it was canceled and re-ran it, which is how I was able to see the entire season. I was 15 at that point and finally old enough to get it.

Angela Chase, played by Claire Danes, is a 15-year-old kid who is going through the pangs of being a teenager. As with most teen girls, she’s almost always annoyed with her family, making new friends that her parents are wary of, trying to figure out if her old friendships are worth fighting for, and falling in obsession (not love) with a boy for the first time. So, yeah, I understood what she was going through.

I think the reason this show didn’t find a strong audience was because most teen-driven shows at the time were comedies and were light on the drama. My So-Called Life tackled serious topics, such as teen addiction, coming out, sex for the first time, and school violence. These were not teen TV show plots that had been explored in a dramatic and real way.

Sure, Saved by the Bell had the infamous Jessie episode where she got hooked on caffeine pills, but Rayanne, portrayed by A.J. Langer, was a hardcore alcoholic that almost died when she mixed alcohol with pills at a party. In the show, she struggled with her drinking, got sober after the overdose, and then relapsed in a painful way. Adult audiences weren’t ready to see what tons of teenagers were doing on their TV screens.

Wilson Cruz, who played Rickie (Enrique), struggled with coming to terms with the fact that he was gay. Not only that, but because he was gay, his family abused him and kicked him out of his home. His character had to deal with the trauma of getting called derogatory names, being bullied to the point where he brought a gun to school in order to protect himself, and living on the streets for a period of time until Angela’s family took him in. That’s some serious shit!

The reality is that there were, and still are, teens that deal with these issues. In ’94, I don’t think audiences were either aware or ready to come to grips with these facts. If there were teen characters that were dealing with these major life issues, it was probably on a show where the teen was a minor character, and the story was told through the parents’ eyes. My So-Called Life revolved around the teen characters and how they saw the world through their young eyes, what they experienced, and what they thought and felt about those experiences. It was a hard pill for adult audiences to swallow at that time.

Here’s the truth, if My-So Called Life were to premiere today with the same story lines, I could almost guarantee that it would last more than one season. Look at a show like Euphoria, which is much more graphic than My So-Called Life. That show has found a large audience of both teens and adults, and it confronts almost all of the same types of storylines that were already presented in My So-Called Life.

It’s sad that the show ended so soon. The last couple of episodes in the season gave a hint of what was to come if there was going to be a second season. Angela was going to need to choose between the bad boy she had been minorly involved with for a couple of months, or the neighbor/dorky nice guy that would treat her right. Rayanne, because of her relapse and what she did during it, had lost Angela and Ricky’s friendship and was trying to rebuild those relationships. I would have loved to have seen how these characters and their lives evolved, but that’s what happens when a show only gets one season; the audience that did connect with it gets sold short on what could’ve been an impactful series.

My So-Called Life will just have to live as one of those one season shows that had so much potential, but was never given the chance to thrive.