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Degrassi (2001)
7.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Degrassi: The Next Generation
The Canadian school drama took on sex, teen pregnancy, bullying and drug abuse with a directness that unsettled its American broadcaster, which held back a season-three storyline about a fourteen-year-old's abortion for three years. It also cast Aubrey Graham, now better known as Drake, as basketball star Jimmy Brooks. Fourteen seasons means uneven quality, so the early ones, when the Next Generation tag still sat on the title, are the place to start.
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Smallville (2001)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Clark Kent's teenage years in Kansas, played as a high-school soap under a strict "no tights, no flights" rule: no Superman suit and no flying. The early seasons are pure WB, with a new super-powered menace most weeks, a doomed crush on the girl next door and Remy Zero's "Save Me" over the opening credits. It ran for ten seasons and left high school behind long before the end, so treat the first few as the teen drama and the rest as optional.
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Everwood (2002)
7.6/10on IMDb
First aired
A widowed Manhattan neurosurgeon moves his children to a small Colorado town, and his son Ephram, a gifted pianist who resents every minute of it, carries the teenage half of the story. Greg Berlanti's series is gentler and more tearful than its WB neighbors, giving family arguments as much weight as first love. Choose it when you want something that feels like a warm sweater rather than a cocktail party. Four seasons make it a manageable rewatch.
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The O.C. (2003)
7.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Ryan Atwood arrives in Newport Beach from the wrong side of the tracks, but it is Seth Cohen, the comic-book obsessive who claims to have invented Chrismukkah, who made the show a cult. Josh Schwartz treated music as a character: indie bands played the Bait Shop, Death Cab for Cutie among them, and six soundtrack albums followed, with Phantom Planet's "California" as the theme. The first season is close to perfect; after that the plots get gloriously silly.
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One Tree Hill (2003)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Two half-brothers in a North Carolina town, one basketball team and one terrible father: the set-up is pure soap, but nine seasons turned it into a comfort watch with a devoted following. Music runs all the way through, from Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want to Be" theme to episode titles named after songs, bands and albums. The fifth season jumps four years ahead, past college, and that is where opinions divide, so decide early whether you are in for the long haul.
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Joan of Arcadia (2003)
7.2/10on IMDb
First aired
A teenage girl starts receiving instructions from God, who appears to her in the form of various people, from small children to teenage boys. Amber Tamblyn's sardonic Joan stops it becoming preachy, and the CBS series was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in its first season. Only two seasons were made, which makes it an easy weekend binge and one of the decade's more thoughtful oddities.
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Veronica Mars (2004)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
A teenage private investigator in Neptune, California, spends the whole first season working out who killed her best friend, Lilly Kane, while her school treats her as an outcast. Kristen Bell's dry wit and the town's open class war between the rich and everyone else give it more bite than almost anything else here. The Dandy Warhols' "We Used to Be Friends" is the theme. Fans funded a 2014 film through Kickstarter, and Hulu revived it for an eight-episode fourth season in 2019.
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Hex (2004)
7.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Sky One's homegrown answer to the American supernatural shows: a withdrawn girl at a remote English boarding school discovers dangerous powers, and a fallen angel called Azazeal takes a close interest. That angel is played by Michael Fassbender years before Hollywood stardom, which alone makes it worth tracking down. Hex lasted two series and 19 episodes before its cancellation in 2006, and the second series feels different after Fassbender and Christina Cole left.
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Friday Night Lights (2006)
8.7/10on IMDb
First aired
High-school football in Dillon, Texas, shot documentary-style with three cameras and no rehearsal, and with Explosions in the Sky performing the instrumental music. You do not need to care about football: Coach Taylor's marriage and teenagers deciding whether to leave a small town are the real subject. The second season stumbles, but the show recovers across five, and Kyle Chandler won the 2011 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for it.
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Skins (2007)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Bristol sixth-formers behaving very badly, written by a team whose average age was 21 and recast every two years, so each generation of the gang gets its own story. The first two series, with Tony, Sid and Cassie, are the ones most people remember, and their parties and soundtrack defined what British teenagers thought E4 was for. Expect drugs, sex and real grief, with no effort to make any of it wholesome.
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Gossip Girl (2007)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Manhattan's Upper East Side as reported by an anonymous blogger, voiced by an uncredited Kristen Bell. Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, working from Cecily von Ziegesar's novels, built it for maximum scandal, and the clothes mattered as much as the plots: it was hugely influential on fashion for teenage and young adult women. Blair Waldorf is the reason to stay through six increasingly absurd seasons. This is the 2007 original, not the HBO Max sequel.
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The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008)
4.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Fifteen-year-old Amy Juergens finds out she is pregnant after band camp, and five seasons follow the consequences for her, her family and half her school. Its pilot set the record for the highest-rated debut on ABC Family. Critics were largely unconvinced and the dialogue can be wooden, but Shailene Woodley's lead performance holds it together, and it is very bingeable in an eye-rolling way.
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90210 (2008)
6.2/10on IMDb
First aired
The CW's spin-off of Beverly Hills, 90210 follows new students at West Beverly Hills High, with original cast members dropping in during its first two seasons. Early reviews of the pilot were lukewarm, then warmed considerably as it settled into its own sunny, soapy rhythm. Pick it for Los Angeles excess and cliffhangers rather than emotional depth; five seasons give plenty to get through.
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The Vampire Diaries (2009)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Two vampire brothers fall for the same girl in Mystic Falls, a Virginia town with a lot of supernatural history. Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec turned L. J. Smith's novels into a show with a ferocious pace, burning through twists other series would save for a finale. Eight seasons and two spin-offs, The Originals and Legacies, followed, so it suits anyone who wants a long, swooning soap and has not yet picked a brother.
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Misfits (2009)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Five young offenders on community service are caught in a strange electrical storm and come away with superpowers, mostly ones they would rather not have. Howard Overman's E4 series is foul-mouthed and often very funny, but it lands real menace and sadness too, and its first series won the 2010 BAFTA for Best Drama Series. Robert Sheehan's Nathan carries the first two series; after he leaves, the show loses some spark, so the opening run is the essential part.
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