The World Needs Another Season Of My So-Called Life More Than It Needs Two Other Seasons Of Homeland

Not to be outdone by the streaming comedy service Seeso (owned by NBCUniversal) or CBS All Access (soon to launch new online-only series that extend the trusted TV franchises Star Trek and The Good Wife), ABC today relaunched its own online streaming service, ABCd. (And unlike Seeso and CBS All Access, ABCd is free.) Some of today's coverage has noted that the relaunch comprises seven new online-only series, but chances are viewers will be more interested in the full seasons of extinct ABC series of yore -- Sports Night, Ugly Betty, Brothers & Sisters, Felicity (which, though it aired on The WB, ABC gets since it was a production of Touchstone Television, a division of Disney), and one of the all-time greatest one-and-done series in TV history: My So-Called Life. In fact, if you just glanced at one of these news reports, you might be able to trick yourself into an announcement that My So-Called Life was getting a full-on streaming-service revival, with new episodes. It's not...but it should be.

I am not a crackpot. I just think the world needs more My So-Called Life far more than it needs more Homeland.

Let's take the first part first, because there is a rather high-profile precedent for a streaming service picking back up with a cancelled series primarily targeted toward women: Gilmore Girls, which is currently in production on four new episodes for Netflix. Except the difference is that we got seven full seasons of Gilmore Girls before it passed on -- more than most shows get, and far more than My So-Called Life did. In a perfect world, we would have seen as much of Angela Chase's life as we did Rory Gilmore's, as she plugged away in high school, made and broke friendships, dated a guy who built her a car. (Maybe not that last one.) But since the cruel realities inherent in the business of television denied us those years with Angela, joining her again in her late thirties is honestly the least the universe owes us.

"But how? Claire Danes is on Homeland, and will APPARENTLY BE THERE FOREVER." Ugh, I know. In fact, I don't like to think about it, because watching Homeland -- a show I really liked in the early going -- piss away all its audience's goodwill by going on too long and keeping alive characters who really should have been killed off if producers had any balls just makes the unnaturally short life of its star's last high-profile TV gig all the more tragic by comparison. Still: Homeland is a prestige cable show that, though it does shoot in far-flung locales, only makes twelve episodes a season. If a new My So-Called Life were kept to around the same-length season -- which is standard for originals both on cable and streaming -- surely Danes could find the time to do both.

Furthermore, while I don't know Danes (I guess that's...a reverse name-drop?), I bet if she were forced to choose, she'd choose Life. Playing Carrie on Homeland has brought her career-making accolades and a shitload of acting awards, but at this point, what more is there for her (or us) to discover in this character? We've seen her being effective as a CIA agent, and being ineffective; on her meds and off her meds; happily raising a child and less happily trying to make that child's quasi-adoptive father understand Carrie's particular psychological issues. WE GET IT.

There's also the fact that, from a political standpoint, Homeland has been problematic for a while. It stereotypes Muslims. It does this a lot. Including on the show itself, accidentally. At a time when real-life political candidates (one in particular; maybe you've heard something abut him) are demonizing Muslims and fomenting xenophobia as a campaign tactic, maybe we don't need those ideas dramatized so much anymore.

Plus even Danes must know that, without Carrie, Homeland could go on. It's not like the show's plotting would make it that hard to believe that Carrie might get killed in the line of duty -- or maybe even just take a break from working in the field so that the show could bring her back again later. Saul could mentor/clash with an entirely different kind of CIA agent protagonist -- maybe a Muslim one, who could let the show portray a member of the faith in a positive, patriotic way, FOR A CHANGE.

My point is that fans of Homeland might enjoy watching Carrie and find her adventures gripping and suspenseful. But My So-Called Life fans LOVE THAT SHOW -- like, more intensely than they might love some of their relatives. If streaming services haven't opened up the world of TV for precisely the kind of unexpected yet thrilling development that a revived My So-Called Life could be, then literally why do we have them at all? I'm very excited to rejoin the characters of Twin Peaks and Gilmore Girls, and I just think ABCd could both prove it's an indispensable addition to the hardcore TV fan's streaming services suite AND thrill a whole generation of extra-long-sleeved TV fans by giving My So-Called Life the same treatment -- and if Homeland had to be sacrificed in the process, it's a net gain for the universe. I am not a crackpot.