The Gen Z Reboot Of ‘Heartbreak High’ Is Even More Risqué Than The Original

Are you ready for a reboot of Heartbreak High? Well with all due respect, that’s irrelevant, as the new Australian TV series landed on Netflix today.

And look, it can be hard to get excited about Australian TV at the best of times; especially when it comes to stories about young people. But Heartbreak High — which aired on the ABC in the ’90s — was the exception to the rule: delivering a snapshot of Australian high school life that cut through the otherwise sanitised depictions on offer.

And as its reboot is set to be released on Netflix rather than its original network the ABC, The Guardian reckons that it is “racier” than its predecessor. Oop! Australian Euphoria, anyone?

The new series picks up in a decidedly 2022 setting after a sexual assault scandal rocks Hartley High. The students are plopped into a sexual literacy class meaning that the episodes go on to explore big fat issues like consent, peer pressure, drugs and alcohol, and gender and sexuality.

The reboot, like the original, will also put lower-to-middle class characters front and centre. “That’s where most of us grew up,” executive producer Carly Heaton told The Guardian. “We want aspiration, but in the same way Heartbreak did it; they’re cool, and you still want to be them, but there are people struggling, single parent families, people doing shift work. Often TV has portrayed that in terms of the struggle, and it can be very dark, but there’s love and hope in this.”

Watch the trailer for Heartbreak High below.

Heartbreak High is streaming now on Netflix.