Instant Entertainment: Teen Angst Edition
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<p>This week: My So-Called Life and Daria</p>
MY SO-CALLED LIFEForget the teen dramas of today, Gossip Girl's got nothing on My So-Called Life. Back in 1994, America was introduced to Angela Chase (Claire Danes), Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto, before he sucked), Rayanne Graff (A.J. Langer), Rickie Vasquez (Wilson Cruz), Brian Krakow (Devon Gummersall) and other characters residing in the fictional town of Three Rivers, Pennsylvania. Less than a year later, and with just 19 episodes under its belt, the show was canceled. May 15th, 1995: Never Forget.Luckily, one can relive the rebellious and simultaneously awkward teenage years on Netflix Instant Watch and Hulu Plus. Click right here or here and you'll get all 19 episodes, each one jam-packed with Angela Chase-isms like: "What I like, dread, is when people who know you in completely different ways end up in the same area. And you have to develop, this like, combination you, on the spot.""I just like how he's always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great.""You know how sometimes the last sentence you said, like, echoes in your brain, and it just keeps sounding stupider? And you have to say something else, just to make it stop?""I bet people can actually die of embarrassment. I bet itâs been medically proven.""Sometimes it seems like weâre all living in, like, some kind of prison. And the crime is how much we hate ourselves.""Thereâs something about Sunday night that really makes you want to kill yourself.""People always say you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster, or something. Like you can know what it is, even. But every so often, Iâll have likeâ¦a moment, where being myself, and my life right where I am is, like, enough."Homework this week: buy a flannel and sink in to the best '90s teen dramedy that was ever canceled.
DARIADaria was basically the animated version of Angela Chase, with a little bit of pre-Air America/'90s Janeane Garofalo mixed in for good measure. In fact, at the time the show was airing (from 1997 to 2002 on MTV), the New York Times called the 16-year-old Daria Morgendorffer, "a blend of Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz and Janeane Garofalo, wearing Carrie Donovan's glasses."Daria had a winning combo of smarts and extreme pessimism, and if she lived in Williamsburg today, she'd probably be Tweeting a lot of "white girl problems." Her family lived in an upper middle class suburban town called Lawndale (later there were hints this was either outside Baltimore, or somewhere in Pennsylvania).Daria's "Jordan Catalano" was Trent Lane, her best friend's brother who was equal parts slacker and musicianâthe Achilles Heel of a thinking girl in the grunge-era.You can watch every episode of Daria on Hulu... enjoy! (But, like, try to be a little disaffected.)
<strong>LEAVING NETFLIX INSTANT SOON!</strong><p>The <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/queuenoodle">Queue Noodle</a> tells us what's leaving Netflix Instant in a week, The Pianist and Buena Vista Social Club will both take their final bow on March 15th. And 2009's sci-fi drama <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/"><em>Moon</em></a> will be taking off on the 10th.</p>