Let's now move away from singing and dancing and move onto something a bit weightier. Here's the description of A Matter of Time:
Lisl Gilbert (Karlene Crockett) doesn't know where to turn when her mother (Rosemary Forsyth) is diagnosed with cancer, and it seems death is only a matter of time. Lisl struggles to understand her mother's fears and anxiety regarding her illness, life, and her family's love. With a father (Wayne Heffley) who cannot articulate his grief to his family, Lisl finds comfort and support in an insightful counselor (Kate Zentall) and comes to know her mother more than ever.
Clearly, the underlying trope is that of mortality, which is hardly something that's specific to teen media. But its treatment in teen media is often rather unique. Unique because usually nobody actually dies. Killing a character off a television show is usually reserved for contract disputes or to get rid of somebody that nobody likes, either on screen or off (Shannen Doherty in Charmed). Programming intended for teens typically takes the less dramatic moving to a different state or country approach (Shannen Doherty in Beverly Hills, 90210), so as to avoid the complicated issue of exploring a developing sense of mortality, because of, I don't know, the networks' insistence that audiences are incapable of dealing with anything reasonable?
Brian Murphy's Popular (the precursor to Glee) took the typical approach to mortality when Harrison was diagnosed with leukemia. He didn't die, but it was a rather protracted illness and I think they put him in gauze headwrap for some inexplicable reason and also in one episode I seem to recall him serving as some sort of spiritual guide for Brooke who maybe had an eating disorder during a starvation-induced hallucination? I don't know, it's been a few years since I've watched Popular and really all I'm able to recall is Mary Cherry, which is not altogether unpleasant.
But really, Popular, for the most part, did an impressively decent job with this.
And then there's Buffy. That show dealt with mortality on a nearly weekly basis, and explored it from nearly every angle possible. Buffy herself died a few times. Then there were the vampires-with-souls struggling with their humanity. And then Tara was murdered and Willow's inability to cope lead to the near destruction of the world (on a much grander scale than was the near destruction of the world that happened every Tuesday).
But none was more poignant than Buffy's mother's struggle with cancer and ensuing death in season five. Buffy was more than familiar with death, but always from a supernatural cause. With Joyce, it was entirely human. The dichotomy was striking and the reactions more realistic than nearly any other exploration of the issue (except perhaps Six Feet Under, but that's not TV, that's HBO).
The episode in which Joyce finally dies ("The Body") is one of the most powerful episodes of television, and despite my current opinion of Joss Whedon, it was masterfully done. Anya's inability to comprehend death is truly moving, and the entire episode is slow, beautiful, and painfully touching.
