With the rumors of a possible new reboot series tantalizing our nihilistic souls, we look back at the perfect storm of teenage angst, acerbic wit and Gen X disaffection that was MTV’s Daria.

After nearly 20 years of mediocre reality shows and banal programming it’s a little bizarre in retrospect to think of MTV as the place where ground-breaking and thought-provoking animated series originated, but in the space of just a few years in the late nineties, the music channel brought us Aeon Flux, The Maxx, The Head, Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butthead and of course, its infinitely smarter spin-off little sister series, Daria.

The series began with Beavis & Butthead recurring character Daria Morgandorfer moving out of Highland (due to uranium in the drinking water) with her family (career-oriented mom Helen, hapless dad Jake, and image-obsessed little sister Quinn) to the sprawling suburb of Lawndale, USA. The show continues all through high school until Daria’s graduation in the feature-length finale Is It College Yet? Along the way there is superficiality, frustration, teenage angst, adult angst, anthropomorphic personifications of holidays (more on that later), devastatingly brilliant dialogue, romance, a musical episode and a *lot* of pizza.

Like, a whole lot of pizza.

Throughout the series, the audience is subjected to all the indignities, absurdity and idiosyncrasies of high school (and hence, society at large) through the eyes of Daria and Jane Lane, her artsy best friend, who is equally misanthropic, but much more upbeat about it.

As the series progressed, this duo of snark managed to wryly comment on topics as diverse as fleeting fads, rampant consumerism, artistic integrity, censorship, class warfare and body image. Daria and Jane were every snarky duo you’ve ever seen attending the school dance ironically, rolling their eyes at the cheerleaders or skipping the pep rally to go to the record store. Their witty repartee would form the crux of the series as these two misfits navigated a world where they seemed to be smarter than everyone else around them, students and teachers alike.

We were also introduced to Jane’s older brother Trent, the laid-back-to-the-point-of-lethargy lead singer of local band Mystik Spiral.

While superficiality and clueless shallowness were common occurrences at Lawndale High, Daria often managed to subvert expectations by giving all of its characters unexpected depth. Don’t get me wrong, dumb-as-a-goalpost quarterback Kevin and “Barbie doll meets blow-up doll” head cheerleader Brittany are never revealed to actually be Mensa members or anything, but they’re not portrayed as bad people either, just two really clueless individuals who have basically had life handed to them because they’re attractive and athletic, and who will probably be in for a rude awakening when they realize that they peaked in high school.

The faculty of Lawndale High, consisting of ready-to-snap-at-any-given-moment Anthony Demartino, the hippy-dippy Timothy O’Neill and man-hating Janet Barch are caricatures, sure, but they’re nuanced caricatures. African-American students Jodie and Mack are portrayed as smart and capable if was somewhat aggrieved at the antics of the entitled white people everywhere they look.

And as far as Daria’s family, well I’ll let her explain:

Little sister Quinn was probably the character that experienced the most growth throughout the series. Starting out as a superficial fashion-obsessed airhead juggling multiple potential suitors, the Lawndale High Fashion Club vice president found herself getting weary with her peers and occasionally venturing out on her own and finding she had some brains to flex. In the Episode “Quinn the Brain,” Quinn accidentally gets a good grade and gets a reputation for being smart — but rather than suffer ostracization as Daria expects, being smart becomes a new fad.

The show wasn’t above getting weird at times either. In the season 3 episode “Depth Takes a Holiday”, Daria is faced with two dudes claiming to be the personifications of Valentines and St. Patrick’s Day who were looking for help to get Christmas, Halloween and Guy Fawkes Day to come back to “Holiday Island,” (which they left for it’s lameness to start a band with Trent in Lawndale).

While a lot of people didn’t like this episode as Daria wasn’t known for fantasy weirdness, there’s still a lot of hilarity to be found in this underappreciated gem. From St. Patrick’s day’s hostility towards Guy Fawkes day for being an English holiday, to when Daria and Jane actually visit Holiday Island and find it to be a high school, to the popular holidays deciding to go back after being horrified at those President’s Day guys now running the school, there’s a lot to like about this quirk fest.

Plus Trent getting an actual gig is always a win.

Of course it wasn’t all high school silliness and personal growth. There was also some romance lingering in the air. For the first few seasons, Daria harboured a crush on Trent, and constantly found herself uncharacteristically tongue-tied around him. Jane picked up on this immediately and was constantly attempting to get the two alone. Trent was a hopeless slacker from the word go, but displayed steadfast love for his sister and respect for Daria coupled with a surprisingly introspective nature.

Alas, his unreliability spelled doom for the would-be couple and Darient (Traria?) was never meant to be. Jane for her part proved that she didn’t share Daria’s trepidation in pursuing the opposite sex, or making out with strangers at a party. So when Jane met the clever and thoughtful Tom and started going out with him it created a bit of a wedge between her and Daria, which was nothing compared to the wedge created when Daria made out with Tom behind Jane’s back.

Yes that’s right, in what had to be the most shocking kiss of the 90’s, Daria stole Jane’s boyfriend. It would take a whole movie for them to properly patch up their friendship.

Daria: Is It Fall Yet was one of two movies that would sandwich the final season. The movie saw Daria struggling with her first boyfriend, Tom, and trying to relate to an sullen alienated kid at the summer youth camp where she’s forced to volunteer. Jane was off having her own adventures at an art commune.

Ultimately though, the most interesting storyline sees the culmination of Quinn’s evolution from superficiality to depth. Quinn takes on a tutor for whom who she develops a crush — and who devastates her when he calls her out on her vapid ways. Quinn pours herself into studying only to find that she rather enjoys it. When she returns to school, she correctly answers a question in class and then effectively shuts down her best frenemy Sandi when she attempts to ridicule Quinn.

Daria tapped into a kind of cultural disaffection that resonated with a lot of people who were coming of age in the ’90s and realizing just how vapid and thoughtless the world could be. The writing was consistently hilarious with each superficial trend or ridiculous social more practically begging to be mocked with Daria and Jane’s brilliantly biting commentary.

But there were also some nuggets of truth laying around the perfectly maintained lawns of Lawndale, USA, waiting to be picked up. Be honest about how you feel. People might surprise you. Have a strong belief in something. Don’t be fake. Don’t put up with people who are fake. Hold onto friendship.

You know what? We’ll just let Daria herself sum it up for us: