August has reached the point where summer is still here, but the school year is starting to come into view. The dog days of summer are winding down. Backpacks, notebooks, pens, and binders have taken over the seasonal aisles. Football teams are back on the practice field. College students are preparing to move into dorms or return to campus. High school students are thinking about class schedules, lockers, pep rallies, fundraisers, school carnivals, football games, and seeing familiar faces again.

A new school year brings its own mix of excitement and uncertainty. There are new classes and new teachers, but there are also old friendships, new friendships, new loves, old loves, breakups, rivalries, and chances to begin again. That makes August and early September a good time to revisit shows that know how to use school as more than a backdrop. Many of these series premiered after I had already finished high school. By then, I was working and attending college through a nontraditional route. Still, these shows resonated with me.

You do not have to attend an expensive private school, live in a wealthy California community, date the captain of the football team, or investigate a murder between classes to recognize what these characters experience. The settings may be fictional, and some of the drama may be larger than life, but the friendships, disappointments, family problems, romances, and questions about the future remain familiar. This is my back-to-school binge list.

End of Summer Break, School Hallways and Clubs

School dramas have always understood that returning to class means more than opening a textbook. A new semester can change a person’s entire social world. Students walk into new classes, try out for teams, join clubs, attend dances, reconnect with friends, and decide which version of themselves they want other people to see. For older students, the pressure becomes even greater. Junior and senior years bring questions about graduation, college, work, relationships, and what happens after high school. College and university add another layer. Students gain more independence, but they also have to manage new responsibilities and determine what they want from adulthood.

Television adds a little spectacle to all of this. The parties are bigger. The scandals are messier. The secrets are harder to keep. Few people attended a party at a classmate’s mansion, beach house, or yacht club, but most people remember getting dressed for a school dance, meeting friends for a night out, developing a crush, or watching a friendship change.

The shows on this list work in much the same way. Some add football, private schools, superheroes, aliens, murder investigations, or anonymous threats. Yet each one returns to the pressures and possibilities that come with being young and trying to decide what happens next.

Back-to-School Binge List

The O.C.

The bad boy who truly isn’t bad. After troubled teenager Ryan Atwood is taken in by the Cohen family, he enters the wealthy and complicated world of Newport Beach. His friendship with Seth Cohen and relationships with Marissa Cooper and the other students place him in the middle of family conflicts, school events, parties, romances, and social divisions. Watch The O.C. because who doesn’t want California scenery, strong friendships, memorable music, messy relationships, and characters trying to determine where they belong. The show may surround its teenagers with money, mansions, and elaborate parties, but its emotional conflicts remain surprisingly relatable.

One Tree Hill

Half-brothers Lucas and Nathan Scott begin the series as rivals on and off the basketball court. Their conflict soon expands into a larger story about friendship, family, ambition, love, loss, and the choices that shape life after high school. Watch One Tree Hill if you love basketball games, school rivalries, close friendships, complicated romances, and characters who grow far beyond their teenage years. It is especially suited for viewers who want to follow a group from high school into adulthood.

Veronica Mars

There is nothing like a teen drama set on the West Coast. Veronica Mars is a high school student and private investigator living in Neptune, California, a town divided by wealth and status. While helping her father with cases, she investigates crimes involving classmates, families, and some of the most powerful people in the community. Watch Veronica Mars because it’s school drama with sharp dialogue, class conflict, romance, betrayal, and a mystery that gives every hallway conversation another layer. The original three-season run was followed by a crowdfunded film in 2014 and a revival season on Hulu in 2019.

Friday Night Lights

In Dillon, Texas, high school football affects nearly every part of community life. Coach Eric Taylor, his family, his players, and the people around them deal with the pressure to win while facing injuries, family problems, relationships, financial struggles, and difficult decisions about the future. Watch Friday Night Lights if you want football games, pep rallies, small-town life, family relationships, and young people carrying expectations that often feel too heavy. Even viewers who do not follow football can connect with the characters and the community surrounding them.

Smallville

Before Clark Kent becomes Superman, he is a student in Smallville trying to understand his abilities while protecting his secret. School, friendships, romance, family responsibilities, and strange events connected to the meteor shower all shape his path. Watch Smallville when you want a coming-of-age story mixed with superhero mythology. Clark may have extraordinary powers, but many of his problems involve familiar questions about identity, belonging, first love, friendship, and the kind of person he wants to become.

Roswell

Liz Parker’s life changes after Max Evans saves her and reveals that he is not human. Liz becomes part of a close group of teenagers trying to protect a secret that could place all of them in danger. Watch the original Roswell or the reboot Roswell, New Mexico, if you want high school romance, science fiction, secret identities, close friendships, and the feeling that something unusual may be hiding behind an ordinary small town. The alien storyline raises the stakes, but much of the series still revolves around trust, love, family, and feeling different from everyone around you.

Pretty Little Liars

After Alison DiLaurentis disappears, Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily drift apart. They reconnect when someone using the name “A” begins sending messages that reveal private information and threaten to expose their secrets. Watch Pretty Little Liars when you want school dances, friendships, romances, secrets, suspicious adults, and enough mystery to make nearly every character look guilty. Rosewood appears polished and peaceful, but the students quickly learn that almost everyone around them is hiding something.

Gossip Girl

Students at an elite private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side discover that their relationships, mistakes, and secrets can become public through an anonymous gossip site. Serena van der Woodsen’s return to New York pulls her back into old friendships, rivalries, romances, and family conflicts.

Watch the original Gossip Girl if you like private-school drama, New York, expensive fashion, college decisions, social competition, complicated friendships, and scandals that spread before anyone has time to explain. The characters live privileged lives, but their insecurities, betrayals, and fear of being left behind give the series its emotional pull.

Talk Out Daily Final Thoughts

These shows did not become favorites because my own school experience looked exactly like the lives shown on screen. Plus, I was well out of high school when these shows came about. I understood wanting to find the right friends, balancing responsibilities, planning for the future, making mistakes, dealing with relationships, and trying to determine where I belonged. Most people can recognize some part of themselves in these characters, even when the setting is far removed from their own lives. That is what makes these shows work as a back-to-school binge. Some of the stories are exaggerated. That is part of the fun.

Most of us did not attend a party at someone’s second home or spend the semester trying to uncover the person sending threatening messages. We did, however, have friends, crushes, disagreements, embarrassing moments, sports, dated the football player or nerd, plans that changed, complications, feel-good moments, school carivanals, and nights that felt important at the time. As August closes and another school year begins, these are the shows I would place at the top of my back-to-school binge list.