My So-Called Life is an American teen drama

Teen drama

A teen drama is a dramatic television series with a major focus on teenage characters. The genre was relatively non-existent for the first 45 years of television; it came into prominence in the early 1990s...

 television series created by Winnie Holzman

Winnie Holzman

Winnie Holzman is an American dramatist, screenwriter and poet. She created the ABC television series My So-Called Life, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination for writing in 1995...

 and produced by Edward Zwick

Edward Zwick

Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...

 and Marshall Herskovitz

Marshall Herskovitz

Marshall Schreiber Herskovitz is an American film director, writer and producer, and currently the President Emeritus of the Producers Guild of America. Among his productions are Traffic, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, and I Am Sam. Herskovitz has directed two feature films, Jack the Bear and...

. It originally aired on ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 from August 25, 1994, to January 26, 1995 and was distributed by The Bedford Falls Company

Bedford Falls Productions

Bedford Falls Productions is the production company of Edward Zwick, the co-creator of the television series thirtysomething and Once and Again, and the director of Legends of the Fall, The Siege, and Blood Diamond...

 with ABC Productions

ABC Entertainment

ABC Entertainment is a network production company owned by ABC that was created in 1982.The company was previously known as ABC Television Network Productions, ABC Circle Films, and ABC Productions...

. Set at the fictional Liberty High School, it follows the emotional travails of several teenagers. The critically acclaimed, but short-lived, show ended in a cliffhanger with the expectation that it would be picked up in an additional season, but it was officially canceled on May 15, 1995.

The show placed #33 on Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

's "New Classics TV" list of shows from 1983 to 2008, in 2007 it was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME." and TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

 ranked the series number 16 on its 25 Top Cult Shows Ever list.
My So-Called Life dealt with important social issues of the mid-nineties, including child abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

, homophobia

Homophobia

Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

, teenage alcoholism

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

, homelessness

Homelessness

Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...

, adultery

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

, school violence

School violence

School violence is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved...

, censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

, and drug use

Substance abuse

A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...

.