Tagline: You’re standing on my neck.
Curiosity: It’s a show about an ostracized high school student that I watched when I was an ostracized high school student. I wonder how it’s held up now that I have to pay for my own health insurance…
Plot: Daria Morgendorffer (Tracy Grandstaff) is an intelligent, alienated high school student, one whose firm and idealistic moral stances often keep her from acting on anything in life. Well, that and the fact that most of the people at her school suck ass, besides her best friend Jane Lane (Wendy Hoopes). Armed with sarcasm and alternative outfits, Daria and Jane take on all the crap high school can offer, from flaky siblings to douchey students to insane parents and teachers.
Thoughts: I’m glad I sat through all five seasons and two movies of Daria, because overall it’s a show that still resonates with me. The show captures a lot of the alienation and terror I felt, and I’m sure plenty of other people would identify with it as well. It wasn’t until college that I started to feel comfortable with myself, and Daria captures a lot of the insecurities, misadventures, and stupid growing pains I experienced.
That being said, the first season is shit. Outside of introducing most of the main characters, it’s a terrible, worthless viewing experience, and pretty much every criticism leveled against the show – it’s nihilistic, it’s cruel towards men, it’s just plain terrible – is valid for the first 13 episodes. Daria comes off as a snarky, vapid bitch, ripping into those around her with little justification. She’s kind of a cunt. Even for a cartoon, the characters are a little too, well, cartoon-ish. That the characters come from such well-off economic backgrounds makes it even harder to care about them.
The second season is where the show starts to find itself, and it’s tied with the fourth season for my favorite. Season Two feels almost like a reaction against the criticisms of season one, as the characters become much more balanced. Each episode has a message, directly addressing a problem teens might face and letting them know they’re not alone. Sometimes it’s a little too much like an after-school special, but generally speaking Season Two is essential viewing for the young and disenfranchised.
Season Three recycles Two’s formula, but by that point the writers had run out of ideas for “teenage issues,” so by the fourth season, they moved on to a new topic: a season-long story arc about dating. Jane starts dating a boy named Tom Sloane (Russell Hankin), and the show delivers a lot of compelling drama as Daria goes from hating Tom for taking Jane away to secretly crushing all up on his goodies. Because let’s face it; being secretly in love with your best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend makes up at least 40 percent of the high school experience.
The series culminates in its second film, Is It College Yet?. It’s basically a 75-minute ending to the show, and it beautifully wraps up a lot of stories while leaving plenty of room for a spin-off, should the writers have felt so inclined. They didn’t pursue that, though, which I give them credit for. Unlike The Simpsons or South Park, Daria ended at a perfect point, leaving behind a mostly solid set of episodes. I started the complete collection thinking I’d blown $40. By the last movie, I was sad there wasn’t more story to consume.
Reflection: I kind of prefer that the producers replaced most of the incidental music with nondescript alt-rock. I don’t want to know what MTV thought people like Daria and Jane would listen to, but that Korn poster in Trent’s bedroom makes me uneasy.
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