10 Teen Dramas That Are Actually Good Television Shows

6. My So-Called Life

For one generation of teenagers, My So-Called Life was like watching their own lives play out on television. In Claire Danes' character, they saw themselves, while Jared Leto provided the metric against which all men must be measured. My So-Called Life possessed this rare, elusive quality that made it feel authentic and never seemed like it was talking down to its teenage audience. Despite the show's significant following, it was cancelled after only one season. But in a way, that helped to preserve the integrity of the show. When you're on the air for five, six, seven seasons, it's very easy to fall into a nasty cycle of needing to top whatever came before. Stories become bigger, more melodramatic, and more contrived, fighting an endless battle against the potential for declining viewership. And that's not what My So-Called Life was about. It was a great show while it was on the air, and while it was undoubtedly cancelled prematurely, that's infinitely better than overstaying its welcome. This way, we can remember it fondly, rather than cringing while thinking about how they screwed everything up in the seventh season when it turned out it was all a dream. No, we're still not over that.