I was browsing around Hulu for another show to watch, that was something I didn't have to chart who's betraying who, like you have to with a show like Succession, and I stumbled across The O.C. and realized I had never seen it before. One of the landmark teen shows and I had somehow missed it and never caught up with it once I was an actual teenager. Then I realized something: there aren't that many straight-up teen dramas. I mean, there's Riverdale, but that feels like its own beast, which I love.
It could be fun. Think of the romance, the intrigue, the betrayals, the small town or big city scandals, the class differences. Everything that feels ten times worse when you're a teenager. I want them to either speak like real teenagers or speak in a super heightened way and reference obscure and/old movies, music, tv, etc.
Find a cool conceit, whether it be a small town scandal or something like Gossip Girl (that won't collapse after the fourth season, but that's a rant for another time and something I probably will do at some point) to bring these shows into the social media age properly. And really explore how social media affects them, and not just passingly mention that people are tweeting mean things. Make it an actual storyline for some of the characters, or make it part of the school culture and build it up into a big event that happens near the end of the season. And don't make it something supernatural, unless it's a Halloween special or an episode happening in a character's head, then make it as weird as you want and go back to normal the next week.
I want a new sarcastic second-lead who comments on everything and sees the truth in a lot of the more self-absorbed or oblivious characters, but then becomes one of the hearts of the show. I want the pretty girl who seems oblivious and self-involved, but over time shows depth and becomes one of the best people on the show, who you want to see succeed because of those that overlooked her brain for her looks. I want a couple that stands the test of time, and one that is constantly breaking up and getting back together.
(This also means we get a good teen drama without low-rise jeans and the rest of 2000s fashion, because that decade was a nightmare. Honestly, what were they thinking?)
I don't know if this is me feeling nostalgic for a genre of television or just wishing for something different from what I've been watching lately.
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