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Friday January 15, 2010

School is in

By MUMTAJ BEGUM


For this class reunion, we walk you through 10 TV series related to school, reliving both the good and the bad times.

IT makes perfect sense; when you have teenagers as main characters, most of the goings-on in the series are going to be set in a school. Not specifically in a classroom – who needs to watch a lesson taking place when you can get that in real life – but rather a walk-and-talk scene in the hallway, by the lockers, in a cafeteria, at the gym and yes, hanging out at the school yard and, even the basement.

After all, the best lessons about real life are outside a classroom – that’s where a character has to face all sorts of challenges that separates a protagonist from everyone else, making him or her a hero of the story.

Being bullied and taking care of the big lug – check; trying out for cheerleading/football and finding it not up your alley – check; hanging out with the nerds and finding life-long friends – check; being an outcast and somehow making it work like a pro – check.

These are the standard plots that turn up in some episodes, and there are others that are mere exaggeration of teenage life. But sometimes, a series may capture what we’re (or were) going through in our lives.

Here are 10 series that will forever be in a class of their own.

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer – Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) learns that she’s the Chosen One – to slay the vampires – at the age of 16. And just like that, she’s forced to go from a clueless teen to bearing the burden of the world on her petite shoulders. But she deals with it with a little help from her geeky pals from school – Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) – and her Watcher, the school’s librarian, Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head).

Naturally, a lot of the meetings on how Buffy is going to save the world – again and again – take place at the library (where no other Sunnydale High School students go to). Well, to no one’s shock, directly beneath Sunnydale High School is a Hellmouth, a subterranean, mystical portal that attracts evil forces.

In the third season finale, Buffy blows up the school to kill the Big Bad of the season.

Kirsten Bell played a super sleuth and angsty teen in Veronica Mars.

Veronica Mars – Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) shuns the rich crowd with a vengeance, although this is kind of hard when she goes to Neptune High, a school filled with California’s richest brats. Nevertheless, our heroine marches to the beat of her drum, allowing her the freedom to do what she does best – solving cases, just like her private investigator dad.

Besides being able to dish out biting remarks – with pop culture references thrown in for good measure – she’s very resourceful especially when trouble beckons. Veronica knows where the money shot is and her focus never swerves.

Smallville – Need rescuing? If you go to the same school as Clark Kent (Tom Welling), he will definitely save you.

Downplaying his super strength, Clark tries not to do anything that would gain him attention. Luckily his best friend – a nosey Chloe Sullivan (Alison Mack), Lois Lane’s cousin – is always sniffing for trouble, forcing Clark to use his powers to get them out of fixes.

The duo go to Smallville High, where Chloe runs the school paper. Her speciality is investigating the weird and the unexplained, of which there are plenty in Smallville. Both of them are fearless in doing the right thing, so much so, that the principal has to back down a bit when it comes to these two.

Problems of the privileged: Even socialite teens have their own set of growing pains, as shown in Gossip Girl.

Gossip Girl – New York’s most privileged attend an elite private school in the city’s Upper East Side, where there’s always something exciting happening.

Midnight party at a closed pool on school night; group study involving champagne, flowers and candy (not in that order); daily limousine pick-ups to and fro; and limitless pocket money.

But wait, life is not one long party as these kids must also go through growing pains like everyone else. It’s just that, erm, their set of problems is a little different from ours and it starts with the word “socialites”.

90210 – Popularity contests are a bitch, and at West Beverly Hills High, her name is Noami Clark (AnnaLynne McCord). All the anorexic teens who live at this glamorous postcode struggle on a daily basis – not so much with their lessons but their personal lives. Picked a lipstick shade already, and move on. With teens like these, West Beverly Hills High School remains just another number.

My So-Called Life – The students at Liberty High School have got it right: a teenager’s life is filled with misplaced angst and it is constantly dire, due to perpetual confusion. It is a time for self-discovery and this happens on a most ordinary day, and always unexpectedly.

Stuck in this limbo world is Angela Chase (Claire Danes), an average teen who is neither popular nor an outcast. It may be Angela’s story, but it sometimes feel like looking at one’s own diary, written during that awkward age.

And her school life? She sums it up nicely when she says: “My parents keep asking how school was. It’s like saying: ‘How was that drive-by shooting?’ You don’t care how it was, you’re lucky to get out alive.”

Freaks And Geeks – Right now, it’s cool to be a geek. In the 1980s, not so much. If the title doesn’t give away what the series is all about, its tagline should: “Everything you remember from high school ... that you choose to forget.” Sadly, the system of categorising people that existed then, still exists today. Sigh. On a brighter note, three of the actors who portrayed the “freaks” are now big names in the entertainment world – James Franco, Jason Segel and Seth Rogen. Yay.

The Wonder Years – If Freaks And Geeks used an 80s setting, this one starts at the tumultuous 1968. At the centre of this series – which ran for six seasons – is the story of Kevin (Fred Savage) and Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar), two teenagers discovering the meaning of friendship, love and family while going through all kinds of setbacks, personally and globally.

This series shows just how defining all those little moments are, as they shape who you turn out to be.

Friday Night Lights – It doesn’t get any more school-oriented than this drama which revolves around a high school football team, Dillon Panthers, and its coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler). The series may be centred on sports, but it is really the human drama that drives it.

This is clear from the start when we see the star quarterback suffering an injury which puts an end to his football career when he ends up in a wheelchair for life. Then, there’s his girlfriend who goes from being a cheerleader to a Christian youth leader. Typical stories of jocks and cheerleaders, this show is not.

21 Jump Street – It must be the worst assignment ever – youthful-looking police officers going back to school, disguised as students, investigating criminal goings-on involving teenagers. No wonder Johnny Depp bolted after his contract ended with season four. Nonetheless, it was entertaining for the viewers while it lasted.

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