'My So-Called Life: The Complete Series'

On air: 1994-1995

Anyone who grew up watching TV in the '90s remembers this show, but let me buffer this recommendation by telling you that I have an older sister who forced me to watch "My So-Called Life" when it first aired back in 1994, and I hated it at the time.

Sixteen years later, Netflix gives me the opportunity to reconnect and enjoy a show that deals with real life. Looking back, my sister and I were too young to understand the episodic themes (teenage squalor, homelessness, homophobia, violence, drugs), but we did connect with the meaninglessness that teenagers feel living in urban sprawl.

Claire Danes and Jared Leto are Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano; each of the 19 episodes begins and ends with despair, there's no happy endings here. Remember "Clueless"? It's the opposite of that.
--Justin Yu

Watch it on Netflix here.