20 years ago today the Fox Network unleashed
Party of Five upon the world, launching what is probably still the world's most depressing teen drama ever. The five Salinger siblings were orphaned from the outset, and then collectively struggled through six seasons of drug abuse, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, domestic violence and cancer. If there was a misfortune to make these kids miserable, it happened to them. If there was a mistake in life choices for one of them to make, he or she would make it. If there was an opportunity for the precocious younger sister Claudia (Lacey Chabert) to pout and whisper 'I am so ashamed of you', she would take it.
It was, all things considered, absolutely dreadful television. On the other hand the constant cavalcade of regret and misfortune became oddly addictive. I'm not ashamed to admit I watched
Party of Five. Indeed for a few seasons at the beginning I was completely addicted. It was the 1990s' most exceptional car-crash television, for a while even topping even the soap opera histrionics of
Melrose Place.
