Watch Popular

TV-14
1999
2 Seasons
7.4 (6,923)

Popular was a teen drama series that originally aired on The WB from 1999-2001. The show follows the lives of two high school girls from very different backgrounds, who become unlikely friends. The first girl, Sam (Carly Pope), is unpopular and nerdy, but very driven and academically successful. Her father is the school principal, which does nothing to help her social status. Next is Brooke (Leslie Bibb), the beautiful and popular cheerleader, who seems to have everything going for her. However, her perfect life is not as rosy as it seems, with her overbearing mother and her cheerleading squad always demanding perfection, she's under a lot of pressure.

When Brooke's father begins dating Sam's mother, the two girls are forced into each other's lives. They soon become step-sisters and are forced to interact with each other in ways they never thought possible. Despite their initial animosity, the girls start to see the good in each other and become friends.

The show's main theme revolves around the high school caste system and how it affects teenagers' lives. Brooke and her friends are the popular kids while Sam and her friends are the outcasts. However, as the two sisters discover, being popular doesn't necessarily mean having a perfect life, and being unpopular doesn't mean you're not cool.

The show also explores topics such as body image, sexuality, and family dynamics. Sam struggles with her weight and body image issues, while Brooke deals with the perfectionism instilled in her by her mother. Sam also starts dating a boy who later comes out as gay, which leads to conflicts between them and their friends.

Another storyline in the show revolves around Mary Cherry (Leslie Grossman), one of the popular girls who is often the source of comedy relief. She's a brash and over-the-top character who loves to get attention. Despite her superficial exterior, she also has a heart, and her friendship with the girls becomes surprisingly genuine as the show progresses.

Popular was praised for its thoughtful and nuanced portrayal of teenage life, and its willingness to tackle difficult issues. It was also notable for its strong ensemble cast, with memorable performances by Tamara Mello as Lily, Sam's best friend, and Christopher Gorham as Harrison, a smart and nerdy student who winds up falling for Brooke.

Despite its critical acclaim, the show struggled in ratings and was canceled after two seasons. Nevertheless, it has since gained a cult following and remains popular among fans of teen drama shows.

Overall, Popular was a smart and engaging show that tackled difficult subjects with care and sensitivity. Its examination of the high school caste system and its effects on teenagers' lives was ahead of its time and remains relevant today.

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Seasons

2 1

21. Promblems

May 18, 2001

Sam and Brooke help deliver Jane's baby (in one of tv's fastest labors) and realize that they can't fight over Harrison, so they both agree on going with him to the prom (m?(C)nage?). Nicole is thirsty for revenge and gets George into asking her to the prom, since he is hurt by what Sam's doing. Josh and Lily are trying to handle their marriage, and decide they should get a place of their own, since Lily's mother disapproval has become unbearable. So they move to the now available Ms. Glass's basement. But they have too much pressure on their hands, since Ms. Glass is using them for house chores and they are totally broke, to the point of Lily having to sell organic soap at the school and Josh getting a job as a window salesman. And they're still trying to consume their wedding. Mary Cherry is touched by the sisterhood of Brooke and Sam, and decides she wants a sister too. She asks Nicole to be her sister, but the Devil turns down the offer. Suddenly, Mary Cherry's long lost twin sister (

You Don't Tug on Superman's Cape...You Don't Spit Into the Wind...You Don't Pull the Mask Off the Ol' Lone Ranger...And You Don't Mess Around with Big Bertha Muffin

20. You Don't Tug on Superman's Cape...You Don't Spit Into the Wind...You Don't Pull the Mask Off the Ol' Lone Ranger...And You Don't Mess Around with Big Bertha Muffin

May 11, 2001

Sam and Brooke have a quick but intense argument over what each one has done to/with Harrison. Sam does not forgive Brooke for having slept with him, and Brooke puts Sam against the wall saying Sam turned him down so there were no strings attached. They both realize none of them is really wrong, and if there's anyone wrong there it's Harrison. At school, they give him the cold shoulder and George does the same to Sam. Sam and Brooke plan to stood up Harrison at a restaurant, but Brooke shows up and is caught by Sam talking to Harrison, which leads into a huge food fight. At home, Jane is trying to fix things between the two of them when her water breaks. Josh's mom announces she is moving away, and Josh has to either come with her or go live with his dad - which he does in order not to leave Lily. She suggests they get married, and although his mom tried to warn him that he was too young, he goes ahead and gets married to Lily right before prom. Mary Cherry accidentally bumps into Big

19. I Know What You Did Last Spring Break!

May 4, 2001

Ms. Glass wants all the students to write down where did they go for Spring Break and how many they slept with, so, in her own words, she can judge them. Most of the gang say they went to Cancun, and Harrison writes that he went to Yemen as his nose starts to bleed. Ms. Glass deduces he has been infected with the Rift Valley fever that is contaminating everyone in Yemen. Just as Sam was trying to talk to him by his locker, they are both isolated from the rest of the people and the school is shut down in quarantine. During Chemistry, Mary Cherry receives a call in her cell phone from someone who knows what she really did for Spring Break - a low-budget soft porn scary movie - and she has to run for her life as she is chased to be killed. Meanwhile, Lily tells April what they really did for SB. They intended to go to Cancun, but they all stayed in LA and had SB in different ways. Nicole is elected to attract the killer, but since she's not a virgin, and only virgins get chased by killers

18. The Brain Game

April 27, 2001

Desperately seeking to be popular again, Mary Cherry fails in an audition to a teen talent show. But that didn't stop her, and she decides to put a team of students together to be in ""The Big Head Challenge"". Everybody is studying for the SATs and they all think it would be a nice way to test their knowledge at this competition. Cherry Cherry, who has become a student at KH (trying to beat her 50 points score in her SAT), also tries to get in, but loses the very last spot to Josh, who surprisingly know a lot more about chicken than we thought. Meanwhile, Carmen decides to take salsa lessons, and has her heart broken by the instructor, whom she had a crush for. But after he realizes how bad he made Carmen feel, he goes to KH to ask her out. At the competition, the gang is first relieved to be against the John Ashcroft Private School for Special Needs Children, but then surprised when they see that Cherry Cherry has bought the entire team and replaced the students by the teen talent show

17. Coup

March 16, 2001

With a lot of power in her hands and not so many brain cells in her head, April Tuna is ordered by Principal Krupps to cut one of the school's clubs. April becomes an easy prey for Evil Nicole (still out of the Glamazons and thirsty for revenge), who manipulates her into cutting the Glamazons off. April and Emory have a small fight when she threats to cut the ""John Travolta-inspired Staying Alive"" club, for which Lily, Harrison and Josh compete to be president of. Meanwhile, Brooke gets in deep trouble after she doesn't come home from Jamie's, which causes Mike to get furious and ground both Sam and her for lying. After Jane talks to him, he finally decides to give Jamie a chance and invites him over for dinner. Back at KH, Emory blackmails Tuna in order to save his club, and she ends up losing the position of student body president to Nicole, who immediately cuts the Glamazons, replaces it with ""Bring It!"", the new pep squad with her as the big star, and shuts the John Travolta club,

16. Fag

March 9, 2001

Lily, in an effort to defend a fellow student who has been suffering jokes about his lifestyle, starts the G.L.A.S.S. (Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Supportive Students), which causes a lot of repercussion around the school, and not such great support from people as she expected. But prejudice is not only about sexual choices, as Sam and George have to deal with the comments on their interracial relationship; Sugar D. doesn't get a job for being fat and Jamie (Brooke's date) reveals that he has suffered prejudice because of his religion. Things get hot when Lily is hospitalized after being attacked when she was leaving a g/l community center (which she took Miss Glass to get information about her sexuality). The gang realizes that hate will never lead to anything, and join the group one by one. Bryan comes out of the closet in a gesture of support after the group is cancelled.

15. It's Greek to Me

March 2, 2001

Nicole's mom is not so happy about her spending time with her birth mom. Judy Julian tries to bribe Nicole's mom so she would disappear. Shaggy leaves and Nicole and Judy become closer. Meanwhile, the girls are bored with the immature behavior of the boys and their boring lives as high school students. Brooke meets a college girl who invites them to a college party. Sam and Lily are stuck at home for lying about where they where going and spend up playing board games with Sam's parents all night. Carmem meets a boy and goes up to his room. Feeling that something might happen, she hides inside the closet until the boys come to rescue her. After their experience at the frat party, the group learns that high school isn't so bad after all.

14. The News of My Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

February 23, 2001

Lily, Carmen, Mary Cherry and Brooke are peacefully riding Lily's car when they pass by a car crash and notice the Gremlin's license plate, TUNA69, and realize that the car belongs to their classmate April Tuna. The entire school is touched by her death and they make a memorial service in her honor. Everyone's feeling guilty about how they treated her. Josh gets a new hairstyle and joins the ""mullets"" club. Nicole finds out that the cafeteria lady is in fact her long lost birth mom. Sam gets an email from Harrison telling her he loves her and asks her to choose between him and George. Nicole gets an email too, saying what a bitch she is. She admits being a bitch at the memorial service, and April suddenly appears, saying she was not in the car that got crashed.

13. Mary Charity

February 2, 2001

Mary Cherry's clothes and objects are confiscated at school because her mom declared bankruptcy. She mutates into a crappy looking teen trash, with KFC's heat and paper shoes. Lily tries to help her and Mary Cherry starts to work at the cafeteria. Lily shows her how it really feels like to be poor. Meanwhile, Sam and Carmen decide to make a campaign to encourage people to take the pictures for the yearbook, and April is one of the only people who candidate for the free makeup. What started out as an experiment on a person's outside appearance turns out to be a lesson in the importance of what is inside a person. Brooke and Harrison are finally free from the hospital and Harrison tries to convince Brooke to take the school pictures. They have a moment while joking around deciding what to wear. Brooke and Harrison agree to stay just friends, Sam and Carmen experiment turns out a success and Mary Cherry gets her stuff back, and helps the needy.

12. The Shocking Possession of Harrison John

January 26, 2001

After Harrison returns to school since he had his bone marrow transplant, he acts in a weird way, making everybody think he's possessed or something. The girls think about it and conclude that he has impersonated Nicole's personality, since she was the donor. They decide to call a priest to exorcise him. Meanwhile, Josh and Lily's relationship is growing so much that there's hardly any space left for Sugar Daddy in Josh's life. Feeling neglected, he finds a new friendship in George. They enjoy each other for a while until George feels like Sugar is demanding too much attention. Josh and Sugar make up. Nicole finds out she's adopted after she asks her mom about her birth and she doesn't give clear information. Shocked, Nicole finds out that her mom was a 16 year old cheerleader, and tries to find her with no luck. Both Nicole and Harrison conclude they have to find themselves.

11. Fire in the Hole

January 19, 2001

Sam decides to take her relationship with George to the next level, and he gets scared and says they should wait until they're both ready. Bobbi Glass decides to make all her students act in a play she wrote herself (""That Burning Sensation: A Cautionary Tale"") about STDs, as a part of the ""National STDs Week"". The students are cast: Lily as gonorrhea; April as syphilis; Josh and SD are worrisome warts; Mary Cherry and Nicole are crabs; Brooke is herpes; Carm is unsightly yellow discharge and Sam gets the part as the whore, with Harrison (now back at school) as the lonely virgin. Josh and Sugar decide to give Harrison a ""virgin certificate"", since he is the only virgin boy in the group, but he gets offended and embarrassed. Instead of taking the certificate, he decides to ask Nicole to sleep with him, but she says no. so he decides to use his certificate, but the prostitute is so old that they decide just to have Chinese food instead. Lily runs into George at a clinic and finds out he

10. The Consequences of Falling

December 15, 2000

Clarence dies peacefully while talking to Harrison. His death has a deep impact in Harrison's own view of life, and he decides is not worth to keep the treatment for his cancer. He goes to extreme measures and decides to put an end in his agony, attempting suicide. But Clarence comes back as an angel to give Harrison a view of what the world would be if he had never been born. We see that April would have become a rich successful owner of a fish market (Tunaville); Brooke would have died from anorexia, Lily would have married Josh after pregnancy and they would have become the first family, and among other twisted things, Nicole and Mary Cherry trying to make a living as whores with Sugar Daddy as their pimp.

9. Are You There God? It's Me, Ann-Margret

December 8, 2000

Josh and Lily get cast for a play at the school where they have to appear nude in front of each other and everyone, which makes them uncomfortable. Brooke is at hospital again for treatment for her anorexia. Harrison is frightened when he walks into a room in the hospital and finds a ghost who seems to know a lot about him. Meanwhile, Carmen runs into Nicole in a metting for teenagers with alcoholic parents, but Nicole totally ignores her.

8. Misery Loathes Company

November 17, 2000

Harrison is checked in a hospital for treatment for his leukemia. His roommate is a religious fanatic, which makes him quite uncomfortable. Harrison doesn't want anybody's help and yells at Brooke. Brooke is faced with the ghost of her anorexia and fears coming back to the clinic she once was. Sugar Daddy feels miserable for his looks and checks into a clinic for food disorders (which happens to be the same hospital where Harrison is.). Mike hears somebody throwing up in the bathroom. First he thinks it might be Jane, but he realizes it's Brooke and puts her in the clinic. Sugar feels very depressed and has a fight with Brooke. Later she advises him to talk to one of the girls at the clinic, and she plays cupid slipping a love letter under her door. But the clinician gets the letter instead. Sugar feels guilty and tells Ashley that he didn't write the letter, without knowing that she never got the letter in the first place. Harrison's roommate has a seizure, just as he was starting to

7. Ur-ine Trouble

November 10, 2000

"Ur-ine Trouble" Principal Krupps announces plans for a random drug test of the student body after one of Kennedy's best and brightest test positive for drugs, instituting a unique punishment. Sam decides to drop out of the race for homecoming queen, not liking what it is turning her into. Nothing prepares them for what happens during the student council debates when Harrison reveals something shocking about himself.

6. Style and Substance Abuse

November 3, 2000

"Style and Substance Abuse" Brooke withdraws from the homecoming queen race, whose nominees include a shocked Sam, Carmen, Mary and Nicole. Brooke instead joins the race for student council president. The death of a student leads to mandatory drug testing.

5. Joe Loves Mary Cherry

October 20, 2000

Nicole is desperate to save her popularity, which is falling since she was banned from the Glamazons. She tells Brooke that she should dump Josh and start dating George. Harrison is feeling a little bit jealous about Sam and George flirting, and so he and Nicole team up to make a study on attraction for chemistry class. Brooke and Josh break up. Sam feels like she lost again to Brooke when she sees she and George together. But George tells Sam he is really into her and they kiss. Josh and Lily find themselves attracted to each other when he helps her to send a gay chimp back to his lover in Uganda. Harrison learns more about Mary Cherry and starts to have feelings for her (could it be love?). Jane tells Mike she's pregnant.

4. The Sweetest Taboo

October 13, 2000

Nicole, desperate to get back to the Glamazons, tries to bribe and blackmail Principal Krupps. Her attempts fail and she gets Mary Cherry and Sugar Daddy to help her make a fake video about him. As a result, she gets terminated from the cheerleaders forever. A new kid joins Kennedy High and gets a spot on the football team. Josh, jealous of him, tries to put everybody else against him. He gets his mom a job at school and she starts to date the football coach, and Josh's life falls apart. Sam misjudges George but realizes that friendship is more worth than an article. Josh finds Nicole crying, a proof that she still has a human side. They console each other.

3. Citizen Shame

October 6, 2000

Bobbi Glass's uncle Tipton is coming to town, and she has to find a solution for her lies. All these years she has been telling him about her child, which she doesn't have. He is rich and she wants his money. So she bribes Nicole to pretend to be her daughter. Carmen runs away from home because she is having family problems. Her father left and she has bruises on her arm. She stays with Sam and Jane for a while, but then Jane talks her into calling her mom. She doesn't want Carmen to come back anymore, and Carmen is thinking about getting her own place. Trying to help Carm with money, Lily shows up at the family lunch and poses as Bobbi's second daughter. Bobbi's plans are ruined and nobody gets the money. Meanwhile, Bonnie, the new SAT teacher, becomes friendly with Brooke and they have lunch together. She gets drunk and Brooke tries to drive her home, but she takes the wrong car by accident and gets in major trouble. Jane and Sam have to take her out of prison. And then Jane realizes

2. Baby, Don't Do It!

September 29, 2000

Bobbi Glass (with her new nickname, Claws) has a new experiment for the students: they have to take care of baby dolls as if they were real babies. Everybody gets one, except for Lily who shares the doll with Carm. Because they don't know the baby's gender, they name it Hillary Swank - neither a boy nor a girl. Brooke is too busy because she is moving to San Francisco with her mom, and doesn't have time to take care of the doll. Emory's twin sisters, Emma and Emily (Em&Em, a parody of the rap singer Eminem) come to K. High looking for lessons from Nic and MC for how to become popular. Too busy teaching the girls and organizing a party that will define popularity, they handle their babies to a British nanny, who eventually abuses them. Carm, concerned about the unpopular group, decides to help them, but neglects her baby. The twins become too powerful and turn against their teachers. Nic and Mary Cherry decide it's time to stop them and put things back on track. Meanwhile, Sam decides t

1. Timber!

September 22, 2000

The students of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy High go back to class, after a long and complicated summer. During this time, Brooke and Sam have been trying to settle things with the return of Brooke's mother. She got divorced and is back to make up for the lost time with her daughter. Jane is very unsure about her future with Mike because she feels like he is still in love with Kelly. After she sees them kissing, she decides to move out with Sam. Seeing all the trouble she caused, Sam is trying to get Jane and Mike back together, but Brooke seems to be more interested in getting their parents back together, but she still likes Jane. Meanwhile, all the students are happy with their new chemistry teacher, since Ms. Glass is in a nursing home. But he gets arrested for dealing with pornography, and guess who is back with a new finger? Bobbi Glass herself. She decides to fail everybody and promise to make their lives a living hell this year. Her first decision is to cut down the 200-year-old o

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