Which teen TV shows should you bingewatch now?
There’s something about watching a good teen drama that’s hard to explain with words. For those of us who’ve passed those ages, it’s a way to relive a fantasy of all the lives we could’ve lived. For those smack in the middle of our teenage years, it’s a direct window into relatable teen struggles.
Watching other teens on the screen can feel oddly comforting, especially if we’re going through the same or similar issues. We may not be getting bitten by vampires, but the exploration of the world looks very similar. Here are some of our favorite teen TV shows we’d love to binge-watch right now.
Sex Education
Starring Asa Butterfield, Gillian Anderson, Emma Mackey, Ncuti Gatwa in lead roles, Sex Education is a dramedy that doesn’t shy away from talking about sex & sexual exploration on screen. It also answers one of the most interesting questions: what’s it like to live with a parent who’s a sex therapist?
What happens when sex education takes place very normally, with manuals, videos and boring, open conversations about sex? How does our societal perception change our personal attitude towards sex?
Elite
A teen drama that takes the route of a thriller without involving mythical creatures in it is a rare find, and yet Elite gives us exactly that. Elite follows the story of three teens from working-class families who enroll in an exclusive private school in Spain. As is obvious, they don’t get along well with the rich students & there’s murder involved.
As we said, it’s hard to find criminal contexts in teen dramas but Elite manages to do that without alarming us. As we’re taken through clandestine rendezvous & fallible teens doing teen things, Elite manages to keep it real.
Never Have I Ever
Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever is a story of an Indian-American teenage girl who is battling with the grief of her father’s death, her fading chance at having a high school boyfriend and securing good grades all at once. As Devi tries to become an interesting student at Sherman Oaks High, she puts herself in awkward situations like asking the hottest guy at school to have sex with her.
What also set Never Have I Ever apart from the other teen shows was a fresh take on brown representation, in that the protagonist wasn’t a usual goody-two-shoes. Devi’s unapologetic about the way she chooses to live her life & it only gets better in the very binge-worthy second season, where she also has tough competition from another Indian girl.
The cast, comprising of Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Poorna Jagannathan, Richa Moorjani, Darren Barnet, Jaren Lewison, Ramona Young, Lee Rodriguez, among others is impeccable.
Dash & Lily
Based on Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan & Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily is one of the warmest holiday series you can watch in the run-up to the festive season. It seems like a cliche on the surface: a cynical boy & a stubbornly optimistic girl cross paths in a very old-school fashion.
As they trade messages & dares through a notebook exchanged in the library, they are brought closer to each other with this distinct peek into each other’s personalities. At the same time, they deal with the other people in their lives with baggage of their own.
The Vampire Diaries
If you like a vampire romance with more substance than the Twilight series, the love triangle in The Vampire Diaries is a thorough joyride. Elena, Damon, and Stefan are not the only compelling characters & it’s one of those rare shows that ended with a meaningful finale.
Until then, you have 7 seasons worth of spells & charms to figure out.
Gilmore Girls
If you’d like a nostalgic throwback to the millennial life growing up, Gilmore Girls will acquaint you with the joys of being a java junkie, dreaming big, the small town bustle, and the best mother-daughter relationship ever portrayed on television.
