For a show that ran for a mere 19 episodes from 1994-1995, My So-Called Life had an outsized cultural impact. In addition to launching Claire Danes and Jared Leto's acting careers, the series proceeded cult classics like Freaks and Geeks in capturing the awkwardness of adolescence. It also dealt with serious topics, such as homelessness and teen sexuality, at a time when those subjects were generally taboo on television. As a result, My So-Called Life has continued to make an impact on viewers almost thirty years after it ended.
Created by Winnie Holzman, who also co-wrote the stage musical Wicked, My So-Called Life followed Angela Chase (Danes), a fifteen-year girl trying to figure out who she wants to be in life while attending high school in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. However, while Angela served as the show's protagonist and narrator for most of its run, the show devoted a good deal of time to developing its supporting characters. Their ranks include Enrique "Rickie" Vasquez (Wilson Cruz), a gay sophomore being raised by his abusive uncle, and Jordan Catalano (Leto), Angela's crush and a rebellious teen with an undiagnosed learning disability.
Partly as a way to ease the strain on the show's young actors, many of who were still in school at the time, My So-Called Life often split its attention between its teen leads and the grown-ups in their lives, particularly Angela's parents Patricia (Bess Armstrong) and Graham (Tom Irwin). This was all the more unusual when the series aired, well before the rise of programming aimed at both teenagers and older demographics like the majority of shows on The CW. If anything, this has made it easier for those who grew up on My So-Called Life to revisit the series years later, this time watching it more from the perspective of the adult characters.
Despite the show's critical acclaim, which led to Danes winning a Golden Globe for her acting, My So-Called Life was canceled by ABC in 1995. In an interview included with My So-Called Life DVD boxset, executive producer Marshall Herskovitz said Danes and her parents had told the series' producers she didn't want to come back if the show was renewed, admitting the series' creators were "very upset [but] completely understood what her motivation was." Holzman, in the same interview, added ABC was "so on the fence" about renewing the series anyway and more or less used Danes' request as a "convenient" excuse for canceling it.
While My So-Called Life wasn't a rating giant by the standards of the '90s, it did have a devoted following and became one of the first shows whose fans launched an online campaign to save it from cancelation. All the same, Holzman admitted she had lost much of her desire to continue the show after learning Danes didn't want to return for a second season. At the same time, she called it a "blessing" the series ended when everyone involved still enjoyed making it, before pointing out, "This was a show about adolescence and sort of ended in its own adolescence. There was an aura about how short the series was like all things that die young."
Regardless, My So-Called Life has quite the legacy. It was a show that broke ground in the way it authentically conveyed the trials and struggles of teen girls, paving the way for the many series that have striven to do the same thing in the decades since it aired. My So-Called Life also broke away from the formula of TV shows in the '90s, making issues like teen drug and alcohol use, body image negativity and queer identity part of its overarching narrative, rather than topics that were raised one time and never addressed again. The fact it did all that in such a short run is only further testament to the show's accomplishments.
My So-Called Life is available to stream on Amazon Prime and ABC's website.