High School Shows Belong in High School: Why teen drama TV shows should remain set in high school throughout the series

As the theme song fades and the graduation caps are flung into the air, I’m hit with the overwhelming urge to turn off the TV because — let’s face it — it’s all downhill from here.

“Gilmore Girls,” “One Tree Hill,” “Glee,” “Gossip Girl,” “The O.C.” and countless other teen dramas took abrupt turns for the worse once the shows extended past their high school lives.

From complete personality flip-flops to extraneous storylines, the characters on these shows would be better off simply staying in high school and becoming super seniors. 

Some say it’s “unrealistic” to have a TV show spanning nine seasons that all take place in high school, but — I hate to burst their bubble — the shows are already wildly unrealistic! 

With actors over the age of 20 portraying 16-year-old students who spend every weekend partying while contemplating whether they’ll attend Princeton or Harvard in the fall, what’s one more to add to the heap?

More than that, once they make their post-high-school decision, the characters are only seen attending college classes for a couple episodes before there’s another plot change. Like on “Glee” when Rachel Berry went from being one of the youngest people to ever star in a Broadway show to moving to Hollywood to be on reality TV. 

Once high school is no longer the main focus of the show, there’s freedom for the storyline to go anywhere, which isn’t always a good thing. “Gossip Girl” lost my interest when a new outrageous scenario — such as Chuck’s double life in Paris or Serena’s dad intentionally misdiagnosing her mom with cancer — was introduced every other episode. 

In the first few seasons of most of these shows, writers attempt to have somewhat of a tie to reality in the relatable issues the characters face. But once they leave high school, it seems all bets are off. 

“The O.C.” took a drastic turn as they went from being nervous about not getting into college or who would be crowned Prom Queen to chasing down a murderer and avenging their friend’s death. 

Ultimately, writers need the anchor of high school to keep the core plot line on track.

Another issue that these teen dramas run into is that a number of their secondary characters will be “away at school” and can no longer be used in the story line. So they’ll bring on new characters, usually a long-lost sibling or old friend of one of the core characters. 

These miscellaneous characters usually don’t add much personality to the show, but instead only serve to drive a wedge between the main characters’ friendships or relationships, such as in “Gossip Girl” when never-ending episodes went off about the identity of Lily’s estranged sister and former husband’s love child. 

However, worst of all is when instead of bringing in new cast members, they reform the personality of an existing character, whether that be a main or secondary role.  

In “One Tree Hill,” Nathan’s mom starts dating one of his best friends in the fifth season simply because they needed yet another reason to drive Nathan and his mother apart. 

An even more devastating personality plummet occured on “Gilmore Girls” when the brilliant and ambitious Rory Gilmore was given some constructive criticism and decided to abandon everything she’d been working towards her whole life, stop talking to her mom and move into her grandparents’ pool house. High school Rory would’ve been appalled at this turn of events. 

From the litany of examples, it’s of course unrealistic, yet ultimately undeniable that teen dramas are better off either ending on or continuing at the high school level.