Netflix LOL '90s Sitcom EVERYTHING SUCKS!

you would probably like it. you know who you are.

https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/20/590x/secondary/Everything-sucks-1238827.jpg

they use, like, every good '90s song. they really cram them in there.

how'd they find Is "Hey Jealousy" the best rock song of the 90s? ?

I thought this was good. Surprisingly nailed a lot of things about being in high school in the 90s: the way the drama kids acted in the caf, for example, although there was the odd misstep like someone saying "epic".

You want it all, but you can't have it.

Wants so badly to be "Freaks and Geeks" that I judge it for not being nearly as good, though it's still better than most things.

Surely its being Franco-free is a plus.

Ha, it wasn't a FNM reference, sadly. That's a quibble, though: I really was surprised at how real it felt at times.

I liked the handful of these I watched last night, though I spent too long wondering how hard it would have been to get hold of a "The Sky's Gone Out" era Bauhaus badge in the 90s in a town a substantial drive from a record store.

It's about a half hour drive from Portland, acc to Google Maps.

Ah OK - in one of the films of his dad, his Dad said (something to the effect of) "the nearest record store is halfway to Seattle" so I was imagining a longer trek, not that I know anything at all about Oregon geography.

I think I'd have struggled to get hold of a "Sky's Gone Out" era badge anywhere in the UK in the 90s, fwiw. But I wasn't on the look out for one.

Tim, I grew up in a farm town, and we used to mail order stuff or drive to Ernie November's, which was about an hour+ drive in there town with a state college

I bought Bauhaus CDs there

i'll give this a shot

DO NOT give the new Heathers series a shot. I dropped out of that bullshit about 20 minutes in.

xp I grew up in the sticks in the UK so (with smaller distances involved) I understand about being far from record stores and mail-order records; like I say I was spending too much time fixating on how easy it would be to get hold of a (pin) badge with the cover of a decade-old British goth LP. Now I've spent too much time writing about fixating on it.

At least in a bunch of Canadian cities, there was a huge retro goth craze in the late 90s, with exactly that type of kid. It hit my school in exactly 1996. Bauhaus and Cure shit was all over the place.

Luke and Kate drive to Portland for a concert (one you'd probably appreciate!) in one episode, btw.

Anglophilia was also a definite thing for arty kids.

Huh - interesting; I knew that those bands were (in some way) alt-popular back then but it hadn't occurred to me that people were churning out that kind of aged merch. Not sure why it hadn't.

You're right to call the thespy bad-guys in the show "arty kids" but I find myself wishing there was a better name for them, they're theatre-jocks or something.

in the bay area at least, it was easier to buy a bauhaus badge in the 90's than it would be now.

one you'd probably appreciate!

I was thinking you were Tim F when I wrote this but I'm thinking otherwise now, so idk if you would.

Is this the theme song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcs3j8qc5SI

1996 btw ^

My high school was nothing like this.

We resented high schools like this. So fancy with their AV clubs. I bet they even had a swimming pool.

I don't think we had an AV club either tbf.

If this is Freaks and Geeks in the 90s with an alt rock soundtrack, i'm in

It is exactly that but not as well acted or written

in this show's defense it IS trying to appeal to kids. in a good way. my '90s indie-rock loving teen was digging it. i can also hear the people pitching this to netflix: "it's like the stranger things cast in a sitcom...in the '90s!"

F&G probably had one of the best casts of any show in its genre but I thought the girl who plays Kate was pretty good.

as much as this show panders to a specific 90s angle, it's genuine and heartfelt. really enjoy it

I remember seeing Bauhaus CDs in my provincial UK city in the early 90s, and being intrigued by them, but not badges. One of the pubs I used to go to as a teenager had a goth barman and he used to play a live version of Bela Lugosi's Dead sometimes if he was working. There were quite a lot of goths about at the time there. Thinking about it there was a goth/punk/grunge clothes shop back then that sold badges and studs and things, they might well have had Bauhaus badges.

i was fairly similar to tyler in high school

this was pretty good; it's no F&G certainly but I did watch the whole thing in one sitting even though a few bits kind of annoyed me.

I guess people are now freaking out about the age difference between two of the actresses who play two characters who have a moment at the end (I guess I should just say

*SPOILER*

)

That seems to be roundly missing the point, after all they are professional actors. I do wonder if Emaline's new found lesbianism is going to stick because she seems to just become whatever the person she's with desires.

Best line in the whole series was "Looks like someone's seen the Craft".

SPOILER

All they do is dance and kiss, iirc, right? Are people seriously freaking out about that?

Ugh, I thought I entered a bunch of line breaks there.

yeah, but you know, it's twitter people, who may not be real people

http://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/news/everything-sucks-kate-emaline-kiss-scene/

^^ that url just spoiled it for me :-/

Don't get why people would get upset about this. 14 year old girls kiss? Wow shocker etc.

Russian bots imo xp

"14 year old girls kiss" no the thing people are upset about is that the actress who plays Emaline is 20 and the actress who plays Kate is 14. Still, you know, wtf. I don't think it was done in some predatory manner.

Not sure whether to finish this, about halfway through. Once it got to the stoner forest episode it just felt daft as fuck. Knowing that millenials are the biggest audience for content makes me feel like netflix is xeroxing our coming of age into such heavy handed and pandering material. Loved the tori references but feels like the characterizations are paper thin, like the threatre jocks, whom I luckily didn't encounter at school (though I was a rat). Some of it just feels disngenuous but then there's moments like the tori stuff that were cool

Still not convinced Netflix isn't just the walmart of tv

Agree

the more original content netflix starts shipping the more like regular TV it seems, with like 80% of it being shit of no interest to me. But, I do think this show got better as it went on.

Tbf, I mostly watch things like this to let my brain shut off.

I watched maybe half of this whole hungover this past weekend. Harmless but really not good at all. “Paper thin” is right.

I’m really quite impressed with how they’ve handled Kate’s confusion about and coming to terms with her sexuality. I went through some not entirely dissimilar stuff (tho later when I was in college) and this feels very real to me.

Also, as someone who was forced no to eat her lunch in the bathroom and basement locker room for 1/2 of my freshman year because there was a widespread rumor that I was gay and my friend group dumped me as a result, the scene with her eating in the bathroom stall hit very very close to home.

ah shit, yeah there was some genuine moments here, sorry if i was crass. i definitely connected with some of it

Oh hey no not at all. There are a lot of things about it that would probably bug me otherwise but I just think the way they’ve handled that whole storyline is great and very real.

re Netflix as Walmart: http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/netflix-700-original-movies-series-2018-1202711940/

I watched the first episode of this last night and it kind of struck me as something that could have been on Nickelodeon?

i like netflix.

Unless it's changed a ton since I last saw anything on it, I don't really think Nickelodeon would deal with teen sexuality this way and they definitely wouldn't show a teenage girl getting caught masturbating by her dad.

yeah, i was gonna mention that. and the drinking.

The appearance of zima made me laugh. I was already in college in 1996 but I feel like these kids could have been the little siblings I never had or something.

TBH I just assume every Netflix Original is like second or third-tier network TV until I hear otherwise. By and large they appear to have the production budgets but not the scriptwriters.

I started the first episode and it seemed bad. Maybe I will give it another shot.

It seemed even a step down from Degrassi.

degrassi was awesome!!
everything is a step down from there

i also watched it when it first aired and was the age of the kids in the show
many centuries later my appetite for stories about high school is extremely low

I didn't last 10 minutes into the first episode, the look and stilted quality reminded me of MTV's Undressed.

I should have elaborated on that Nick comment, which mostly meant that I think the intended audience is kids the ages of the kids depicted*. Degrassi is a better touchpoint than Nickelodeon, though I think the fact that this is a sitcom led to some odd tone problems. For ex, I thought that masturbation scene was filmed weirdly with that long zoom onto her unbuckling her belt--I couldn't really tell what tone they were going for there.

Also having only seen one ep, I wouldn't make a big deal about this, but it seemed weird to me that being in Boring, OR is so important, but then there wasn't really any geographical specificity to anything depicted.

*That's not a criticism; I watch and enjoy other stuff that's aimed at young people.

TBH I just assume every Netflix Original is like second or third-tier network TV until I hear otherwise. By and large they appear to have the production budgets but not the scriptwriters.

I have to assume network TV is much better in the UK?

the creators say their inspiration was a swedish movie:

http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-everything-sucks-creators-interview-how-they-made-it-on-small-budget-2018-2

"I have to assume network TV is much better in the UK?"

yeah, the line-up for a network like NBC is suck city. so bad.

i don't really agree with the walmart comparison. other than the hugeness i guess. i am never gonna be surprised by a walmart. i've seen so many good/cool/great movies and shows on netflix that i never would have seen otherwise. from around the world! that's my favorite part. so many countries represented by netflix.

Still not convinced Netflix isn't just the walmart of tv

― kolakube (Ross), Tuesday, February 27, 2018 7:07 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I want to go into every one of these threads and just remind everyone that a Filmstruck subscription is only $99 a year

a few thoughts

i thought this was nice, though yes, light entertainment with lots of nostalgia

when i saw kate's girlfriend i immediately thought this person does not look like she is in grade 9, is she a teenager? so not surprised that she is 20. it's a little strange to have a 20 year old kiss a 14 year old, but i guess if no parties were pressured into this, but stuff like this doesn't come out so soon, which makes me a little ambivalent

i don't particularly think tv nowadays is a step up from netflix, i always thought the opposite, actually

Unless it's changed a ton since I last saw anything on it, I don't really think Nickelodeon would deal with teen sexuality this way and they definitely wouldn't show a teenage girl getting caught masturbating by her dad.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Wednesday, February 28, 2018 10:52 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Schlikelodeon

Iirc, Kate is in Gr 10, Emaline is in Gr 11 (one more year to go before she can graduate)?

oh true

still she doesn't look like a teenager

not gonna do the back in my day spiel

Ime, teenagers on TV never look like (and are rarely played by) teenagers unless they are supposed to be geeky or awkward. If anything, this show is less bad than Glee or 90210. Iirc, Linda Cardellini was (and imo looked) about 25 when she did Freaks and Geeks?

Luke Perry was like 38 or something by the end of 90210

woah gabrielle cateris from 90210 is the same age as valerie bertinelli

haha xp

What always struck me about Heartbreak High was that the teenagers, indeed, looked way older (because they were). But the extra's in the show seemed of the age they had to play, which created this weird effect that the returning cast was indeed 'cooler' than anyone around them.

I think BH90210 did the same.

*'cooler looking'

I love all teen shows/movies and could not get into this. Something was just so off putting.

I mean Dylan was supposed to be just one year older than suicide kid Scott? C'mon man. xp

It's basically what distinguished the freaks from the geeks in F&G.

yeah i just looked James Eckhouse (Jim Walsh, Brandon and Brenda's dad) is 9 and 6 years older, respectively, than Ian Ziering and Gabrielle Cateris

sund4r

i guess i watched too much degrassi junior high lol

i have never checked to see if they were actually the age or close to the age their characters were but at least it seemed like it to me

I think OG Degrassi did use teenagers. That shit was funded by tax dollars.

the good ol days

think of arthur, the zit remedy
those were not 20-somethings

Yeah Gabrielle Cateris was or was near 30 when it started iirc.

Gabrielle Carteris is the president of Screen Actor's Guild which is whoa.

ha weird! Wasn't Melissa Gilbert for a long time?

Gabrielle Carteris is the president of Screen Actor's Guild which is whoa.

― Yerac, Wednesday, February 28, 2018 12:42 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha that's awesome so fits in with andrea zuckerman's character, high achiever/student council type

this show is so cute. sure it's no Freaks&Geeks, but it's easy to get into and the episodes are blessedly short.

i lol'd at the JTT and Rider Strong posters in Kate's bedroom, and also her dad dancing to "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Her coming out story is so well done, neither queer-baiting nor male-gazey.