--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: My So-Called Life image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta47b2973af52febb/69869f2be53aba2d824d3f67/t100_tv_mysocalledlife_photofest1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 12, 2014 # _My So-Called Life_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Everett Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz made their name in TV with _thirtysomething_, a drama about solipsistic adults who saw their every minor crisis as an all-consuming tragedy. In other words, they acted like teenagers. And in the producers’ follow-up high-school drama, the same navel-gazing was somehow more sympathetic and appropriate. Angela Chase (Claire Danes) was a fully realized TV teen, smart and perceptive one minute, whiny and unstable the next, ready to burst into red-faced tears after getting jerked around by learning-challenged heartthrob Jordan Catalano. Angela’s narration was angsty in that ’90s, suburban, I’ve-listened-to-In-Utero-a-million-times way—”School is a battlefield for your heart”—but she won the battle for our hearts anyway. [Get This TV Series](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006SFLV/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined") My So-Called Life ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103667/my-so-called-life/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103667/my-so-called-life/"},"headline":"My So-Called Life","datePublished":"2014-08-12T14:52:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:01:32.637Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103667/my-so-called-life/","keywords":["drama"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta47b2973af52febb/69869f2be53aba2d824d3f67/t100_tv_mysocalledlife_photofest1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta47b2973af52febb/69869f2be53aba2d824d3f67/t100_tv_mysocalledlife_photofest1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103667/my-so-called-life/","name":"My So-Called Life"}}]}] ```