At the time, its portrait of a teenage girl's life and psyche was revolutionary. This was not a show about teenagers played by 35-year-olds in California; it was about 15-year-olds in a fictional suburb of Pittsburgh, most of whom were working-class, and most of whom had family lives that left them untethered and lost.
Guided by Angela's voiceover, a teen-angst ramble that was always allowed to be flawed and awkward, it looked at complicated friendships, social hierarchies, parents, family, sex, drugs and wild crushes, from inside the mind of its young protagonist.
What struck me now is how romantic it is. Not necessarily in Angela's crush on Jordan, which is both understandable, due to the prettiness that makes him a floppy-haired blank canvas, and also terrible.
I can very much believe that it's been 30 years. It looks old, but more curiously, it feels it. It is very much a show of its time, and a different time.
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