American High

Many people who have reviewed this show have called it "just another reality show," well, I say it isn't. "American High" is not only a documentary, but is actually one of the best ever. While the "reality shows", if the warped situations they create can even be classified in with the same world which we dwell in, create absurd situations for the paid actors to entertain us, "American High" simply stands back and watches the action unfold without disturbing the situation. Anyone who is or has ever been a teenager can easily identify with at least one of the characters on "American High." The highlight of this show for me at least was Kaytee, the horn-rimmed glasses wearing, guitar player, who's songs so eloquently express the difficulties of growing up, as well as the absurdities of it. In conclusion, watch this show, now! You won't be sorry!

The previous comment posted said that the season was canceled after two episodes, but I watched it on KET that year and saw the entire season. They were thinking about doing another season but ended up not. Which was sad, but I LOVED this show, it was so great and so real. It wasn't a reality show, it was life. All those reality shows aren't real, they are fake, but this wasn't. That's probably why it didn't see a second season. And KET is not that popular of a channel. But each of the episodes would focus on just a couple of the students, so you should see an entire episode and not see all the students that are a part of the series. They did one or two episodes on prom, and you got to see who everyone was taking and what everyone was thinking. You got to see into these students lives when they took the cameras outside of school, and a lot of the footage they shot themselves, especially the stuff outside of school.

My hope is that when it was pulled from Fox it would have been re-edited into a feature; the matteral is here for an intresting, complex and rich documentry, and thats exactly what it is. Now it's found a home on PBS, where it has held my attention. It isn't reality based TV, and to dismiss the work of an acclaimed documentry crew as another exercise in reality based TV isn't fair, given the nature of American High. American High cares more about characters than pay offs, much like the film Our Song. What interesting characters these are as well although some are underdevoloped for the sake of time. The relationships are also interestingly portrayed, something not seen in American Telivision, rich, real realtionships, it's all about one-liners in sitcoms vs. established characters. In fact American High, and NBC's reality based romantic comedy seres ED may be the only TV shows to show natural relationships without being forced with a plot in mind. My only hope is American High isn't lost, and that the series comes out on DVD, it's a story I'd like to own, it's characters much like the ones in every suberban culture, and thats why most Americans can relate to it instead of the idiotic Survivor rip-offs (ironically produced by Fox, the same network that funded this show), Big Brother, and banal sitcoms. Watch this if your serarous about good documentry filmmaking.

While Fox didn't have the nerve to continue running this fine program, PBS picked it up and not only ran the entire season once, but is re-running it summer 2001 (check out pbs.org for local times). There's no way to compare this show to Big Brother or any other "reality TV" shows. This is not filmed on a studio soundstage or in a professionally decorated mansion with contestants who are trying to win $1,000,000 and/or start an acting career. These are real kids who are struggling with real issues. They're not driven by winning money or becoming a VJ. Because of this, they are probably the most fascinating characters on TV in the past few years.

The reruns that I saw in the summer of two-thousand-one on PBS were very interesting, seeing how other people live their lives, and what obstacles they had to face.

Now that I look back I wonder why FOX canceled this series, sure it does not have very much-- wait, actually it has no hype, but it's still a very good series.

If they happen to do something like this again, hopefully they will put some hype into it, it might make the show last longer. The idea was great, the content was good, I'd rate this show 3.5 of 4 stars.