Square Pegs,always never quite right

With all of the hoopla and fan love given to My So-Called Life(a show that never held any interest to me),now currently out on DVD yet again,I feel that someone should point out another short lived teen show whose cast had a few future stars. Yes,I'm talking about Square Pegs,the CBS sitcom that ran for only one season and had the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker,Jami Gertz and Tracy Nelson as well as SNL writer Anne Beatts who created the show and based Sarah Jessica's character on herself as a teenager.

Square Pegs focused on two girls,Patty(SJP) and Lauren(Amy Linker) who were desparate to be in with the in crowd at Weemawee High School. The girl's biggest setbacks(according to them) were Patty's glasses,Lauren's braces and that they're weren't friends with Jennifer DiNuccio(Tracy Nelson),the snobby Valley Girl who ruled the cool kid clique. It didn't help Patty and Lauren's cause to have aspiring class clown Johnny "Slash"(Meritt Butrick) and New Wave fan Marshall(John Femia) pal around with them either:




Patty and Lauren would try just about anything to gain acceptance,such as audition for the school play,which is a bizarre musical called "A Cafeteria Line". Patty gets the lead but is overwhelmed by the part,especially since it involves kissing Jennifer's boyfriend,Vinnie:



Lauren also had her share of romantic troubles,such as the time she had a serious crush on the substitute janitor. To be fair,the guy wasn't too hard on the eyes:



What's a teen show without a current,hip band making a guest appearance? Devo showed up as themselves,performing at Muffy's bat mitzvah which Patty and Lauren were not invited to,but managed to attend nonetheless:




Square Pegs is sadly not available on DVD,which is a crying shame. If they can put out several seasons of Saved By The Bell and fans of Freaks And Geeks get to relive the glory days in one complete box set,there's no reason that we can't have a nice two disc edition of Square Pegs,particularly since Sarah Jessica Parker is still riding on the crest of her Sex and the City fame.

What I liked about the show was the realistically rendered geek girl look of the main characters(even with the questionable fashion sense of the early 1980's)and the sincerity of their performances. Sure,the plots were mostly either romcom or "hey,our brilliant plan went off the tracks!" and the canned laughter didn't add much to the punchlines,but it was,at it's core,a tribute to true friendship amongst girls and trying to not sacrifice their self esteem in search of social acceptance. It wouldn't hurt to see some of those themes being revisited for this upcoming generation: