The pilot of a TV series, the inaugural episode, is the most important part of your show, maybe even more than the finale. It is where the show takes its stand in popular culture, where it says: "This is what we are, this is what we are about and this is who you will be watching." And through the years, how a show takes its stand has changed dramatically over the years, as a reboot can change dramatically from the original show.
In 1994, Heartbreak High premiered as a spinoff of the 1993 film The Heartbreak Kid, and for five years it captured the attention of those in Australia and the United Kingdom. It followed the students and teachers of Hartley High as they navigate racial tensions in Australia, high school romances, and all sorts of teen angst. The pilot follows the class of Christina Milano (Sarah Lambert), a new teacher on her first day of working at Hartley High. We watch as Ms. Milano engages with a culturally diverse assortment of rowdy teenagers as they raise hell in the classroom, flirt with each other, and eventually blow up into a big fight that ends up with Ms. Milano getting punched in the face.
It established second-generation Greek immigrant Nick Poulos (Alex Dimitriades) as the show's main character. The other characters in the main cast was his on-again-off-again love interest, Jodie (Abi Tucker), the tough-guy bully, Rivers (Scott Major), and the class clown with a heart of gold, Con (Salvatore Coco). This pilot also establishes a lot about what the show is set to become – a semi-serious teen drama about the turbulent lives of students at an inner-city public school. This show wasn't just only about the students either, it gives a perspective into the lives of those teaching them, inside and outside the classroom.
Heartbreak High Reboots the Concept But With a New, Modern Twist on Characters
In 2022, Netflix rebooted the series. The new series follows the headstrong Amerie Wadia (Ayesha Madon) during the fallout of the public exposure of a map her and her now ex-friend Harper (Asher Yasbincek) had made that detailed the sex lives of fellow students. Cast out as a social pariah after taking the fall for it, she builds her way back up with the help of her new friends, Darren (James Majoos) and Quinni (Chloe Hayden). Meanwhile, those on the map are forced into sex education after school class as the principal (Rachel House) desperately tries to save the school's reputation.
It's a razor-sharp, outrageous sex comedy while also being a social drama about a broken friendship and the nature of sex and relationships, and the cast is a diverse group of actors. The focus of the show is put squarely on the students and their inner lives, and also has a clear protagonist in Amerie, even opening with a monologue from her. It follows her story, her crushes, her process through her broken friendship, and her consequences for the 'Hartley High Incest Map.'
As you can see, these two shows may have the same name, and they may be set at the same school, but they are very different in tone and plot. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, after almost 30 years between them no one can expect the new Heartbreak High to be what it used to be. This new 2022 version of Heartbreak High is building upon an entirely different foundation than the original.
Modern Teen Dramas Have Come a Long Way Since the 90s
During that mythological time we call "The 1990s", the biggest teen drama on television was Beverly Hills 90210. It ran for 10 years, 293 episodes, and similarly dealt with the serious issues high schoolers were facing at the time. It could be argued however that Heartbreak High, with characters coming and going more frequently and the more soap opera set up, was closer to the next big high school show, Degrassi: The Next Generation. The show highlighted tropes we now see in teenage shows. Experimenting with sex, alcohol, and drugs got their own special episodes or irreversible mistakes that tailspin into separate dramas like teen pregnancy were highlighted. Promiscuity was a sin in the eyes of the world, and as said in Mean Girls, if you have sex: "You will get pregnant, and die."
The idea of the show was to turn its chairs backward and teach the young viewers a lesson on how to act in high school, Heartbreak High had good lessons, of course. The show was heavily against racism, homophobia, and all forms of assault, but it was not without its outdated archetypes. Nick nowadays comes off as a mildly creepy jackass in the pilot, as does the class clown, the bully has no depth, even after his backstory is revealed it's a bit predictable, and it is baffling to see a fight between two boys being the dramatic climax of a high school drama episode these days, considering how far we've come from that.
Fast-forward to 2019, and a new teen drama has the whole world talking, including very recently winning some Emmy Awards. Euphoria was a smash success, a twisted and smart coming-of-age, with a nihilistic and cynical perspective on adolescence. The series uses Rue (Zendaya) as the perspective character, who is a recovering addict, and the series deals with incredibly complex issues like mental health and sexuality without stigmatizing them, there are still serious stakes to the show, and real damage is caused by the actions of the characters. They don't shy away from how hellish it can be going to high school in the modern day, where sex and unsupervised parties can actually be the least of a teen's concerns.
Fast Times At Hartley High
Don't be mistaken, Heartbreak High 2022 is not an Australian Euphoria, in the same way, Heartbreak High 1994 wasn't just Australian Beverly Hills 90210. In the grand tradition of Australian high school media, the show doesn't take itself too seriously. It's unafraid to approach serious issues with comedy and sincerity, trusting the audience enough to know which mistakes you'll make in high school aren't the end of the world, and which are a bit more dire.
Both the original and the reboot sport an incredibly diverse cast that speaks to the issues of the day, though the issues are wildly different. The original covered a lot of ground in the first season alone, one character dealt with racism after recently immigrating to Australia and there were the aforementioned typical 90s teen drama plot lines. Heartbreak High 2022 is a show that mainly focuses on the issues revolving around sex and sexuality, with only eight episodes, the show has to focus in more on one topic. However, in the pilot alone they discuss the consequences of private lives going public, the outdated curriculum of sex education programs, and there is clearly much more to go into as the series continues.
High school drama shows have existed since the 1960s, evolving from soap operas to more honest looks at adolescence and being a young adult. It took a little time for high school dramas to receive the prestige that other genres and subgenres were given, though there were a couple beloved hits like Freaks and Geeks. Taking the genre seriously shows that we're regarding the issues and lives of young people as something worth talking about, which is an incredibly good sign. The new Heartbreak High may not be too much like the original, nor is it trying to be, aside from a few Easter eggs, but it is a fantastic example of where we are at in the evolution of high school TV shows deep in the age of streaming. That evolution certainly shows when watching it and comparing it to the original series — even judging purely from the pilot — it's definitely one of the shows that is worth a look.