The original Heartbreak High was a cult favourite teen soap, dripping with emblematically Nineties trappings: long, unwashed hair, a patchwork of plaid shirts, a dingy teen hangout run by an affectionate crank. Its depiction of Sydney life was gritty. The brooding cousin of longer-running Aussie soaps like Neighbours (RIP) and Home and Away (somehow still kicking), it arrived in the UK post-teatime with a cigarette dangling defiantly from its lip. Just saying the words “Heartbreak High” in the presence of a person who grew up on it can provoke long odes to the Hartley High student they most idolised (Oh, Drazic).
It’s nostalgia so pure that I’m astonished it took Netflix this long to reboot the series. The new version keeps the straggly hair and plaid shirts, but adds sex, smartphones and social media. It’s a global hit, with more than 33 million hours of viewing time as of Wednesday. Gone is the exacting verisimilitude of OG Heartbreak High, replaced with hyper-speed teen patter and Netflix’s signature glossy shellac. But the central plot? Well, that remains absurdly intriguing.
