Euphoria

This stylishly-filmed angst-fest follows a variety of morose high-schoolers as they deal with addiction, self-esteem issues, and the local neighborhood psychopath. The first season is reminiscent of the UK series Skin's first, best, season.

Hormones make teenagers feel like everything in their life is huge and dramatic and intolerable; this series is about people who really are coping with all sorts of soul-crushing things.

It's also a very glamorized version of teen angst. Everyone is beautiful, the cinematography is sometimes stunning, the girls apparently spend twelve hours a day watching youtube make-up tutorials, and everyone is having lots of sex (trivia: something like 20% of teens are having 90% of teen sex; none of the other 80% are in this series). Zendaya is terrific as the head angster, as is Barbie Ferreira as the token not-skinny girl, who has perhaps the most interesting and unlikely story arc.

It's a really fun series, and for all it's over-the-top ridiculousness, it also captures a lot of the sadness, confusion, and isolation of being a teenager. I'd recommend checking it out.

Sex drugs and more in high school. First a warning. Although this is a show about high school teenagers it's too much for teens to watch. Much more so than "13 reasons Why". There are parts when the scenes are much more explicit than necessary for the story. There isn't a boundary this show doesn't try to push for TV. Having said all that there are some fascinating and bizarre characters that keep things morbidly watchable for 8 episodes. A biracial lesbian drug addict, a transgender girl who is her bestie, a jock with demons, his closeted statutory rapist dad, the list goes on. It's hard to keep track of the different characters and plot twists some tunes. Even if you don't agree with the suitability of the content here the acting is better than it has to be. Zendaya is convincing as an addict very natural acting. Jacob Elordi does the mean jock well.

Hate to say it but do want to see what happens in season 2.

First things first, cinematography is beautiful. Actors did really good job and overall it makes a decent show. But I don't understand if it's trying to spread awareness or trying to encourage young people to do this type of behaviour. I also saw one review that said how this show is showing "the truth" about teens today and I personally think they are wrong. In my opinion this show is overly dramatised (I understand that it's a tv show, it's suppost to be dramatic). I'm currently in my late teenage years and I haven't seen anyone going through what these people are going through in this show. But I would still recommend it to people.

As the father of a teenage girl, I find this very hard to watch, but essential. I have to have several sessions to get through to the end of each episode. These situations ARE real, but maybe don't all occur at the same place and in the same period of time, as they have been put together here for dramatic effect.

Other reviews here are written from the point-of-view of "is it entertaining". I'm writing this with the view of it as docufiction, and I don't apologise for giving 10/10 as such, not as entertainment.

If today's teenagers are really this vapid, shallow, self-involved and absurd, the world is in deep, deep trouble. Obviously, these teenagers are incredibly affluent. How could an "average" teenager begin to afford the disgusting outfits these girls wear? You know not everything is about sex in high school, right? Depressing AF.