American High

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.

I have to say that when I first read/heard about the premise of this show, I thought that it would be simply crap. I've viewed quite a few of these "reality" shows (eg. "Survivor", "Big Brother",...) and some of these shows are almost laughable. I didn't even bother to check out the first couple of episodes of "American High" that were shown on Fox. I had no idea what I was missing out on. I was surfing through channels, unable to find anything good to watch at 10 PM on a Wednesday night. I stopped on PBS, which is a very rare occurrence, and I found a show that actually held my attention. I had no idea what I was watching until a little bit into the show. I was very surprised at how good this show actually was. I think it's very interesting and informative to see so many different types of teenagers. Whether you love them or hate them, you get a good look at what their lives are really like. Now I really look forward to watching this show every week (It's on for an hour, but it only seems like twenty minutes to me). I never got to see the beginning of this series, and I hope that PBS either re-runs the series in it's entirety or that they start all over again, following new teens. This show has really been an enlightening pleasure to watch. This show gets 10 stars in my book.

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.

While I only watch the first two episodes shown by Fox and it's hard to say much. I must say this was a rather interesting show while it lasted. It was like the Real World (the MTV show), only more interesting. What I really liked about this show is seeing real teens instead of flat stereotypes we see in the movies. It's a shame that Fox decided to pull the plug before giving it a second chance. Fox could had been showing the rest of the series last summer instead of re-running the same nine episodes of Titus over and over again.

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.