Items15The creator’s order
  1. 1Degrassi (2001)Degrassi (2001) 7.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Oct 14, 2001Degrassi: 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…0
  2. 2Smallville (2001)Smallville (2001) 7.5/10 on IMDbFirst aired Oct 16, 2001Clark 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…0
  3. 3Everwood (2002)Everwood (2002) 7.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 16, 2002A 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…0
  4. 4The O.C. (2003)The O.C. (2003) 7.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Aug 5, 2003Ryan 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…0
  5. 5One Tree Hill (2003)One Tree Hill (2003) 7.8/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 23, 2003Two 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…0
  6. 6Joan of Arcadia (2003)Joan of Arcadia (2003) 7.2/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 26, 2003A 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…0
  7. 7Veronica Mars (2004)Veronica Mars (2004) 8.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 22, 2004A 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…0
  8. 8Hex (2004)Hex (2004) 7.0/10 on IMDbFirst aired Oct 17, 2004Sky 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…0
  9. 9Friday Night Lights (2006)Friday Night Lights (2006) 8.7/10 on IMDbFirst aired Oct 3, 2006High-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…0
  10. 10Skins (2007)Skins (2007) 8.2/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 25, 2007Bristol 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…0