Really captures the subtleties of life - not just adolescence
It used to bother me that the show was cancelled and that the story lines were left unresolved... But that's part of its mythic status - it never had the chance to go downhill.I own the DVDs and it is one of the few television box sets worth having. I can rewatch the same episodes and still feel moved - whether by laughter, tears, or just a sense of "Hell yeah, that is SO true!" This show is for all ages, but above all it's for openminded people who actually like to think while they're entertained, people who appreciate the nuances in individuals. The characters are amazingly well-crafted and the actors do the scripts justice, for once. No one is a cut-out, even if on some level they are all "types" (and aren't we all, especially in the eyes of others? It is one of the things the show seeks to challenge).
The greatest achievement of this show is the way it presents life situations in MORALLY RELATIVE ways - for once, no moralizing. There is no black and white, no good guys, no bad guys. Sex is neither good or bad; drugs and alcohol are neither good or bad; parents are neither good or bad. Everybody has their reasons and their intentions, and of course conflicts arise, and there is no big make-up session at the end of it, but the characters interact and connect in many different ways. The show does a superb job in depicting situations and events from multiple sides, and capturing the way relationships between people are always in flux.
Angela's voice-over achieves the perfect balance of being introspective and philosophical without crossing the line into overbearing and intrusive. She is the protagonist, but not the focal point of every story line. This is a model to follow! I would say, in fact, that a lot of TV and films indirectly owe a lot to this show. For example, Rayanne and Rickie (the quirky friend and gay sidekick) are prototypes for the characters of Janis and Damian in the film Mean Girls. I could find lots of examples.
To conclude, MSCL is above and beyond the vast majority of television dramas - I loved it when it aired in 1995 (I was 12) and I love it now that I'm 24 and technically "grown up"! It isn't just the nostalgia it triggers, it's the overall production quality and the grip it has over viewers, like a good novel. There's no parallel in today's TV.
score 10/10
Hashimuri 12 August 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1710683/14518
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