There's not a lot I miss about being a teen -- the zits, the homework, the torturous first dates -- but the TV is one thing I wish I'd never outgrown. There's very little of that verisimilitude that grown-up dramas suffer from. From the highly unlikely guardianship of Charlie Salinger to the seriously misguided dating rules of Joyce Summers, teen shows always have some elements of wish fulfillment. Parents are young, attractive or entirely absent. TV teen drama can't be dismissed as silly, the way real life teen drama can be -- its usually an apocalypse, a tragic accident or a mysterious disease, or sometimes all of the above.

'Teen Wolf,' the MTV series that only vaguely resembles the '80s Michael J. Fox movie of the same name, has all the hallmarks of a high school classic.