The best TV show where the characters were, at one point, in high school?

I never watched the show, but I heard it got a lot better after the first season or the first couple episodes. Something like that.

 

I felt the exact same way about Kevin and Winnie not ending up together. Love that they had the guts to end the series like that.

 

Life Goes On is also worth mentioning. Good, solid show. And it tackled high school-related issues in a unique way.

That was the first one I watched since the second season.

I was thrilled they didn't end up together. She was annoying, pouty, led him on, and was completely unattractive.

Yeah, I said it.

 

A show missing from the Wikipedia list Bubbler posted that will go down as one of the worst shows of all-time to be set in a high school -- The Fresh Beat Band (it's on Nick Jr) http://www.nickjr.com/the-fresh-beat-band/

 

I answered before reading the first post, voted for Buffy & Freaks & Geeks easy, and as it registered, I noticed that FNL was on the list, having second thoughts. DD - you have good taste in TV.

 

Growing up in the 90s, I thought Wonder Years was actually a real person's life story. The way it was directed with all the 60's flare, the voice narration, it was almost too real to understand as a six-year-old.

Decades later, I still remember most episodes and all the characters — especially that one episode when Kevin goes on the field trip to the planetary.

 

Agreed on most points, Happy Days and Smallville in particular.

Smallville wasn't really a high school show and it turned to shit for a while before they finally decided to let the characters start being grown-ups.

 

Piotr is the slayer of teenage masturbation fodder.

 

That made me irrationally angry. For some reason, I never saw the finale until a few years ago, when I saw it in syndication. Kevin and Winnie belonged together and then he goes to the airport to pick her up...with his WIFE?! WHAT?!

I voted for SBTB because a lot of the show centered around being in high school, the original cast only did four seasons (and I refuse to acknowledge any of the spin-offs) and when I was watching it after school as a fifth grader, it made me actually want to be in high school. (And then I got to high school and realized the whole show was a gross misrepresentation of the hell that high school was.) But the show is still rewatchable.

I also voted for Gilmore Girls, because Paris Gellar and I probably share a soul. I was ecstatic when Rory and Paris ended up at Yale together because no Paris would have been an incredibly dull show indeed, even with Lauren Graham.

 

Paris was on Private Practice tonight, bucking for a guest Emmy (her husband is one of the show's regulars).

My wife reminded me - with great amusement - about how I used to say that if I was in school with the characters from Gilmore Girls, I totally would have been devoted to Paris. Hey, she was funny and cool. And I am superior to that Doyle guy.

 

I understand some of the hatred for Happy Days. I mean, for crying out loud, the phrase describing a show dying was named or it. But I think people really forget how truly good the first two seasons were.

I voted The Wonder Years and Happy Days. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, The Wonder Years is now running on The Hub. So is Happy Days. When the network started, the first season of Happy Days and the first season of The Wonder Years were running at the same time, an hour apart.

A couple of this changed on Happy Days after the second season (I believe). One is that they went from shooting scenes with one camera in a studio to three-camera sets in front of a live studio audience. That changed the feel and look of the show. The other big change is that by the third season they made the mistake of centering the show more on the over-written Fonzie rather than Richie and the Cunningham clan. Fonzie the outlaw was a lot more believeable than the cartoon character he became. Also didn't like the idea of changing the opening credits song from Rock Around the Clock to the Happy Days song.

 

Matt Saracen's character is what sets FNL apart from the crowd. He wasn't "cool", his parents bailed on him, he lost his starting gig and he always seemed a bit lost.