I seem to have a thing for watching high-quality series that get canceled far too soon. My So-Called Life is such a series. One of the things about this series that really caught my attention is the complexity and utter realness of the characters. It was frustrating at first because I was so used to characters being neater, less full of complications and contradictions and when I watch the various characters on this show make decisions that are honest, even if mistakes, I found myself wishing that they'd make cleaner, nicer decisions and stay true to the box that I put them in.
And so I really have to hand it to the writers and the actors for putting together such a remarkable group of believable characters. The one nagging issue I really had with this show is that it was so clearly written. Whereas the characters were so very real, the stories that were told always seemed to balance on the edge of being contrived. And while I understand the attempts at style, I found the structures that the stories imposed on the characters, such as looking at parallelisms, intersections, as well as the occasional supernatural story clashed so strongly with the realness of the characters that it was hard for me to accept the stories, even as the characters realistically reacted in their framework.
I think that the stories told in the episodes really started to feel less contrived towards the last episodes that were produced and felt the character arcs really pick up. One thing I love about the stories is that there is no real villain, but rather just people, with reasons to like and dislike each other. Sometimes I felt that the resolutions did border a little on pat, but nonetheless stayed believable. I did wish that certain character arcs, especially Ricky's, would've been a little less static.
And despite all my criticisms, when I was watched the end of the last episode, I was surprised by how much more I wanted. I wanted to see where these characters would go. Here was a series that told stories about people that were real. This was not the lifestyles of the rich and angst-y of the present or the soap-opera hyper-drama of yesteryear, but stories about real grounded characters and even if the stories themselves sometimes stumbled over their own cleverness, everything was so... sincere, that it was hard to hate even the contrivances.
So, the loss of this show was a loss to the television landscape. Fortunately, it's been preserved on DVD for future generations of fans of serial storytelling to enjoy. 8/10.
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