I was a few years into my own so called life when "My So Called Life" debuted in the fall of 1994. Not even a year out of college, I'd been going from one crappy little job to the next. Video stores, telemarketing and ski bum. And here was this TV show on Thursday nights. The underdog because it wasn't just about high school. And clothes and rich kids. And Beverly Hills and soap opera.

Although there was a bit of all of that, it seemed, well, a little more grounded than "90210." I can't quite remember if I was still working at MCI when it started. I would flame out of that job pretty quickly, but it was during the same fall. I do know I taped MSCL, and, occasionally would watch "Friends" (which debuted the same year at the same time on a different network) while the tape did its thing.

Early on into the run (which lasted a mere 19 episodes), there was the feeling it wouldn't last very long. "Friends" was an instant sensation and ratings juggernaut. There was no way this little show about strange high schoolers would beat the six beautiful twenty somethings who wore fabulous clothes and did pratfalls.

Created by the people who did "thirtysomething," the show told the story of a family, a group of surrounding and expanding friends and the complexities life throws at you. In an hour long drama centered, mostly, around Angela, a fifteen year old with deep thoughts. Played by Claire Danes, who is now one shining example of how to grow up in the limelight and still be a great actor (and not so much a tabloid mess). She's in love with Jordan Catalano, played by Jared Leto. Leto's been a successful actor who's even had a few hit songs with his band. I have friends who continue to crush on him.

The show had teens having sex, drinking, being gay, homeless and unable to read. Parents were having adulterous thoughts, confused about what they should do with their (now fortysomething) lives and generally clueless about what their kids did in their downtime. I'm not saying it was always realistic and grounded, but there was a sense that these people could be real. Unlike, say, almost any other characters on TV shows.

I watched the entire show over the last few weeks courtesy of Netflix. I hadn't seen it for at least a decade. During most episodes, however, I knew exactly what would be said next and how they would say it. This isn't because I taped the episodes when they first aired and kept watching them over an over. Nope, it's because "My So Called Life" had one of the strangest so called lives of any TV show.

Almost instantly after the show ran through its episodes, it was picked up by MTV. Not to produce new shows, but to rerun the 19 episodes. Which they did constantly over the next year. And this is why I saw them so much as to burn everything into the back of my brain--even though I couldn't really recite it from memory without visual prompting.

By the time everyone had seen the show repeated constantly on MTV, the show had been out of production for a year and Danes was a movie star. ABC, eventually, blamed her for not being able to resurrect the show. Which was kinda mean, but typical. It couldn't be the networks fault for not supporting the show in the first place. It was because the show made its star so famous, she got better jobs. And she was so ungrateful for the network's twenty-fifth hour attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

In high school, I was probably closer to Brian Krakow. I was a nerdy band geek and had crushes on girls who didn't seem to care. He was an overall geek (in band, yearbook, chess club, etc.) who was in love with Angela. When the show ran, though, I had Jordan Catalano hair. Long enough to hide behind, but not quite hippy long (it'd take me another year for that). And I was in love with Angela and Rayanne, the bad girl who threw wrenches into everyone's perfect life plans.

Was my high school life really like this show? Nope. Not really. I found out more about these fictionalized people than I knew about most people I went to high school with. But I could relate, because it was about high school. And most of us had to deal with that, no matter how old we are.

And I think this show was a longer lasting cultural milestone than "Friends," which, short term, influenced hairstyles and obsessions. But it wasn't supposed to connect, it was supposed to make us laugh. But "My So Called Life" was, somehow, very much what the early 90s was about. A failure that splattered its blood on everyone of a certain age.

Nirvana, which was over by the time this show aired, did the same thing. And we carry these cultural deaths (Kurt Cobain is really dead, everyone on MSCL suspended for all time in the ether of DVD reruns) with us. These deaths were, somehow, emblematic of our own inner struggles back then.

In the last episode, everything is left up in the air. Will the dad have an affair with his restaurateur partner? Will Rayanne stop drinking? Will Ricky go out with a girl? And, most importantly, will Angela stay with Jordan (who she just got back with) or see Brian in a romantic way (Brian facilitated Angela and Jordan's reconciliation--which was revealed to her in the final seconds of the last episode)?

Many would love to put these characters on trajectories and tie up all the loose ends. Of course, episodic TV dictates that nothing is static and conflict will continue. So I'll look at it this way: high school isn't the entirety of a life, and this was a color snapshot. I can't go to this reunion. I can only, every once in a while, relive the beginnings of their great adventure.

And remember that in 1994, I didn't have a Rachel haircut (or Ross for that matter), I had a Jordan Catalano. And that's made all the difference.

Matt Worley has something like a Jon Stewart haircut now.