TV characters--high school to college is boring?

I felt Buffy/VS lost something when they graduated high school and went
into college. The show lost its "snap" somehow.

In Veronica Mars, I feel the same thing. Now that she's in college it
doesn't seem the same. She seems too old and mature to be a college
student.

Indeed, I remember way back in Growing Pains when the two oldest got
out of high school the show ran out of steam. Likewise with 90210.

Could it be that TV shows featuring youth are more interesting when
they're in high school than in college?

Perhaps in high school the characters are still seen as youth and
growing. In college their adults and their exploits aren't as big a
deal.

[public replies, please]

Anlatt the Builder...

I think the real problem is in the transition. When a show is
originally set in the characters' high school years, it is structured
to explain why these particular characters, who are very different
people (some smart, some not so, some with "destinies," some who are
freer agents, and so forth) are friends, stick together, and work
alongside each other.

Then they go to college. In most people's lives, that means they leave
high school behind. They may keep up somewhat with their old friends,
but they make new friends who are probably more active in their lives.
They choose colleges based on their interests and intellects. They
change and grow, in a way that is independent of their old friends.

Unfortunately, in an ensemble TV show, this would wreck the structure
of the show. Favorite characters would have to disappear; new
characters would have to replace them. The characters would change in
ways that might threaten the basic plot of the show. And so on.

So instead, the show makes up some contrived reason for all the
characters to go to the same high school. With luck, one very close to
home, so parents and younger siblings can stay involved. The
characters' relationships may shift a little, but not so much as to
prevent them from having adventures together. The characters may grow
and develop, but not enough to distract them from their old mission. In
other words, an artifical and contrived restriction is laid upon all
the characters, and, as a consequence, they seem stuck - not like
they're REALLY leaving home and going to college at all.

On Buffy, Willow was a genius. No way is she going to the same college
as Buffy. On Veronica Mars, they had to play plot games to prevent
Veronica from going to Stanford - which is too bad, because she's
really bright and deserved to go there. On the O.C., part of the
tension between Summer and Seth was based on the fact that she was a
partier by nature, and he was a nerd - but suddenly it was declared
that she was not only brilliant but also studious, so they could both
apply to Brown. Then, despite the fact that this should be their
college years, they both found a lot of reasons to be at home so they
could continue to interact with the other characters.

These kinds of plot contortions, created (quite understandably, I might
add) to keep the show intact, simply do not match the characterizations
of the characters as we saw them in high school. The show develops a
rote, repetitive feel to it, and viewers lose interest.

They may be other factors involved as well. It's true, high school IS a
particularly intense time in a person's emotional life. But so is
college. And, of course, a lot of shows are set during their
characters' adulthood. So I don't think it's just a simple "high school
is better."

The other thing is that a fictional character conceived or "designed"
to be at a certain age (and in a certain milieu) may just not work as
well when placed in another phase of life and setting. Batman's Robin
works great as a teenager. But a 25-year-old Robin simply doesn't work.
(So, in the comics, they've graduated Dick Grayson to "Nightwing," and
replaced Robin with a younger version - twice now.) Maybe Buffy was
designed to be a high school student, and just works better that way.
This doesn't mean that high school is a better setting for a TV show
than college in general, just that transplanting your characters
doesn't always work. (It's easier with adult characters, because
"adulthood" covers a much longer stretch of a person's life than high
school or college.)

I have to admit that I'm still quite enjoying VM (I don't even object
to the new theme song), and I think that, so far, they handled the
transition pretty well. Better than Buffy, certainly (although I
continued to enjoy that even into her college years, it was never as
good). But sometimes I wish American TV would experiment more with a
style often used by the British: a story about a bunch of people lasts
for a certain number of years, and then it ENDS - not because you can't
squeeze a little tiny bit more money out of it, but because the
creators of the show feel that the story is over. If you think of a
good, appropriate story for these same characters down the line, fine;
do a sequel set years after the original. Otherwise leave them be, and
do something else.

Ken from Chicago...

There's also greater restrictions for high school students to rail against
(e.g., smaller physical size, parents, teachers, law, etc.) that when one
moves to college or "college-age" are loosened or no longer apply: