Everyone has one show that holds a special place in their hearts because it was the one you loved most during those long awkward teenage nights spent wondering whether you'd ever fit in and, more importantly, if you really cared. Mine was My So-Called Life.
The story of clever, sensitive Angela Chase (a wonderful Claire Danes caught at the perfect point between gawky and luminous) and her attempts to reinvent herself by befriending wild Rayanne Graff and confused Rickie Vasquez, My So-Called Life ran for one all too brief season in 1994.
And back then it changed my life. In an era where channels are saturated with every kind of teen drama from the knowing (Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars) to the earnest (The Secret Life of an American Teenager) it's hard to remember that in the early 90s the biggest teen show on air was the ludicrous Beverly Hills, 90210.
My So-Called Life was different. It was written by Winnie Holzman, who went on to write the libretto for musical Wicked and last year co-wrote the equally clever, equally honest and equally swiftly cancelled Huge with her daughter Savannah Dooley. Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz AKA the guys behind the fantastically earnest thirtysomething produced it, and chose to depict teenage life rather than fetishise it.
Thus the heroine looked like a real teenager because she was one: Danes was only 13 when the pilot was shot and 15 by the time the show reached its end. And not only did she and her co-stars look real with less than perfect teeth and hair, they also dressed realistically with the same outfits turning up again and again throughout the show, in acknowledgement that most teenagers didn't have 90210-style walk-in closets stuffed full of designer gear.
Then there was the dialogue. While the teens of 90210 sounded more like precocious adults (a concept that the angst-ridden Dawson's Creek would milk to excess four years later in 1998), the kids at Liberty High spoke like ordinary teenagers all fumbles and ums and awkward pauses tailing off in the air.
Even the best lines worked because they were rooted in truth. When Angela describes why she has a crush on the dreamy but dim Jordan Catalano, admitting: "I just like how he's always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great" it's funny but, more importantly, believable, as anyone who remembers being 15 can attest. My friends and I quoted it, only half-mockingly, for years.
The plotlines too were refreshingly ordinary. Yes, there was the odd "very special episode" but generally the point of My So-Called Life was that it dealt not with the big issues but with the small ones: will that unobtainable boy ever notice you? What happens when you ditch your best friend? Can you get away with lying to your mum and dad about what you're getting up to at night? Most of all is there any problem that can't be solved by purchasing a pair of Dr Martens boots and dying your hair bright red?
Of course the problem with any show you fall in love with when you're young is that you love it fiercely and far too well. So it was with some trepidation that I cracked open the My So-Called Life box set. Would it be as good as I remembered? Or like Angela hanging out with Jordan would I discover that sometimes it's better to preserve the dream?
In fact watching it again was a curiously emotional experience. For a start there's the weird experience of seeing my teenage wardrobe unspool on screen. Did I really wear endless checked shirts, tiny black skirts, and doc boots? Yes, sadly I did.
Then there's the way in which your sympathies change with time. The teenage me found Angela's crush on Jordan entirely reasonable. He did lean well plus he was played by Jared Leto with just the right mixture of dazed dreaminess. Rewatching it with a lifetime of poor boyfriend choices behind me, it's hard not to shout: "No Angela, no, don't go fall for his stoner ways, cool though they seem. Look at Brian Krakow, he might seem annoying now but he actually understands you and post-university he'll probably take over the world."
Similarly as a teenager I found Angela's mother Patty to be almost as infuriating as my own. Almost 20 years later and two children later I found myself nodding along as Patty voiced her concern and realising that while My So-Called Life might be a teen show it is also a warm and ultimately rather wonderful depiction of the relationship between mothers and daughters, the battles to loosen the ties that bind and the struggle to hold on to your child even when you know you have to let go.
In fact the show brilliantly captures all kinds of relationships from the initial high of new friendship found (the opening scenes of the pilot depict the slightly out-of-control freedom of making new friends at this age with barely a word) to more complicated friendships forged out of necessity and rejection (the relationship between the geeky, sarcastic Brian and Ricky, who is struggling to deal with coming out, is one of the show's most compelling).
And ultimately the main reason My So-Called Life still works after all these years is because of its honesty and willingness to play it straight. Yes, it was over all too swiftly, cancelled after 19 episodes and on a cliffhanger, but its influence can be seen in a host of teen shows from Buffy to the acerbic Veronica Mars. As Rayanne Graff might say while swigging on a hip flask and trying desperately to find the perpetually absent Tino: "We had a time, didn't we have a time?"
