FREAKS AND GEEKS
Netflix hopes teen series Everything Sucks will be the new Stranger Things and Nineties kids can’t wait for the nostalgia-trip
New US teen high school looks set to do for the 1990s what Stranger Things did for the previous decade
NOSTALGIA ain’t what it used to be but Netflix’s new teen show is hoping to pick up on the wave of all things Nineties with its new series Everything Sucks.
If you spent the ‘90s watching US shows like Saved By the Bell, Sweet Valley High and My So-Called Life then Everything Sucks, probably won’t.
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No doubt the streaming service will hope the show can do for the ‘90s as Stranger Things did for the ‘80s.
That show, starring Winona Ryder, which has won a host of awards including an Emmy, followed the disappearance of a high school boy and the attempts of his friends and family to get him back from unknown, terrifying forces.
Centred on two disparate groups Everything Sucks focuses on the nerdy AV Club and the “freaky” drama club — at Boring High School in a small Oregon town, the kids are thrown together in a joint project, forced to work as one, reports .
Set in 1996, it was a different time, a pre-Columbine time when high school boys in long trench coats didn't equal school shootings — they were just “cool” and wanted to put on Chekhov plays.
And slapping a bindi on your forehead wasn’t cultural appropriation — you were just copying Gwen Stefani.
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If you are looking for that ‘90s wistfulness, there’s plenty of that in Everything Sucks — be prepared to play Cornflake Girl on loop, just like the show did with Ace of Base’s It’s A Beautiful Life. From Tori Amos to the show should transport you back in time.
Even Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s is played for laughs as the daggy but kind-hearted principal’s favourite tune.
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But more than just a collection of references, what Everything Sucks does well, and what those actual ’90s teen shows couldn’t get away with then, was to anchor its story on a young girl discovering her same-sex attraction.
Kate (played by Peyton Kennedy) starts off as the poster child for a sensitive teen — overlooked by her classmates, burdened by a sad backstory and dressed in a baggy jeans and flannel shirt ensemble.
In certain angles, she even looks like Claire Danes did circa My So-Called Life.
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By the end of the first episode, the real heart of the series — Kate’s journey — emerges and the show honestly deals with the confusion that comes with the territory.
Everything Sucks possesses the same kind of melancholy charms as My So-Called Life.
And in another sign of progress, this time around, the gay kid isn't relegated to best-friend status.
Everything Sucks premieres on February 16 on Netflix.
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