Lord knows, if I understood teenaged girls, they wouldn't have hated me so much in high school. But the long-cancelled one-hour drama "My So-Called Life", which is told mainly (except for parental asides) from the viewpoint of fifteen-year-old Angela Chase, allows me to pretend as if I do. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the writing, of course, and no story tells all stories, but its details bear the scent of truth, and the series is unsentimental enough as to win our trust.

"My So-Called Life" first ran during my sophomore year in university, and with high school still somewhat fresh in mind, I didn't feel too old to test it out. Right away, I found its plots, which often paralleled my own episodic youth, to cathartically pacify painful, locker-slamming memories. What you have to understand is my generation never had a TV show that was sympathetic towards us in our zit years; "Beverly Hills 90210" and the like wanted us to escape, not identify. ("Degrassi" nobly attempted to depict the way things really are between 12-17, but its aesthetic drawbacks and purple prose too often turned it into an unintentional laugh riot.)

Part of "My So-Called Life"'s brilliance is how it achieved its compassionate stance: by not always flattering its protagonists. The abhorrent "Blossom", for example, patronized its audience by making the title heroine right about everything every time. Angela, on the other hand, is glib the way we all are at her age (she thinks Anne Frank was "lucky"; she wishes she'd been alive for JFK's assassination for that defining moment in her life) and callous the way we all are at her age (upon acceptance into a hipper clique, she dismisses her best friend of several years). Her characterization is successful because, in many respects, she transcends gender--demystifies girlhood, as it were.

Her wispy romantic outlook, through which she filters events both cataclysmic and mundane, is unmistakably feminine, however, and a heretofore-unexplored small screen perspective, at that. (Claire Danes' faraway eyes keep Angela lost in constant daydream.) Sadly, this kind of groundbreaking entertainment intimidates the average viewer and therefore advertisers, hence ABC's decision to yank the low-rated "My So-Called Life" after just nineteen episodes.

Co-creator Winnie Holzman, after learning that her series would be replaced in the fall by "Murder One", a fictional probing into the homicide of an adolescent female, bitterly remarked, "I guess ABC is more comfortable with a dead girl than a live one." She's right, and the network's initial programming of "My So-Called Life" against "Friends" (a palatable sitcom vying for, let's face it, similar demographics), meant they were digging its grave from day one.

The recent DVD release of a "My So-Called Life" triptych was timely, coming on the heels of NBC's decision to axe the similarly themed "Freaks and Geeks". I will lament the loss of both for the rest of my days, perhaps the latter even more, because its humour never felt obligatory and forced. (Its unglamorous ensemble, too, had a truly endearing vérité quality that I never thought I'd see on American television in my lifetime.)

A 'special features' section of BMG's disc promises at least two more upcoming volumes of "My So-Called Life". I hope their compression techniques of choice improve in the meantime; artifacts (notably, banding in areas of strong shadow) compromise the debut episode, in particular. I attribute the semioccasional grain in each full-frame transfer to the 16mm source material, though some of it could be video noise. Still, an improvement over the 'plugged-up' broadcast presentations.

The audio spectrum of this DVD (all episodes have been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1) has its share of problems, too. While the centre channel anchors dialogue, Angela's narration competes for attention with music and effects in the front mains, and often forfeits. Surrounds are exaggerated at times--in one instance, drizzle carries the force of torrential rain in the rear speakers. I appreciated the effort, however, and overall I prefer these remixes to the weak stereo signal I heard back in1994. A note of warning: the DD sound has been recorded about ten decibels above the norm, risking damage to your speakers at reference level. Luckily, I was a quick draw on the volume knob.

I hope to say more about "My So-Called Life" as future collections arrive. BMG should spend the interim finding a better authoring facility and rethinking their bare bones packaging design.-Bill Chambers