Those high school days just won’t go away

OF course the scars persist -- how could they not? High school is four years of molding, reflection and, occasionally, brutality. Even those left mostly untraumatized by the experience are still shaped by it. Years on, it remains fertile turf for emotional excavation.

On two shows, those pains are brought to the fore: “High School Confidential” on WE (10 p.m. Mondays) tracked a group of young women, Michael Apted style, as they made their way through high school between 2002 and 2006; “High School Reunion” on TV Land (10 p.m. Wednesdays) takes the long view, reuniting select members of one school’s class of 1987. In each case, high school stings; time does little to staunch the wound.

That much is clear on this season of “High School Reunion,” which brings together 14 former students from J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas, outside Dallas. (The show previously aired for two fitful seasons on the WB, with different schools participating.)

This is a close-knit crew, and for the most part, high school bonds have helped shape their social lives. A few of the reunioners are close friends -- only a couple describe themselves as former outcasts of any sort. Their preexisting bonds facilitate a host of profound interactions. The group rallies around Matt, the former jock who lost his wife to liver failure six months prior. His friends stay ready with good cheer, and Yvette, a divorcee, bonds with him about being a single parent.

Deanna, the former popular girl, has become the marrying kind and is coming off her fourth husband. In Justin, the former pipsqueak who’s now hulking, she might have her eyes set on a fifth. On Day 5 (!) of the reunion, while Justin’s still getting used to the idea that Deanna is even talking to him, she makes a sly reference to marriage.

“Justin is the new hunk in our whole world,” says Rob, the former hunk. Of this development, Justin notes, “The guys don’t seem all that excited.”

After all, time is a great sandpaper. Many of the “Reunion” attendees are looking to remake themselves -- Kat, a lesbian, says she’s considering going back to men; Lana, who was married to Mike and later slept with his best friend, Steve, hopes to repair her relationship with her ex. This week, inevitably, Steve shows up too, hamfistedly seeking forgiveness.

Last week’s face-off -- a “detention” is what the show calls it -- was less sinister. Jason, the former bully, was confronted by Glenn, the former geek, over a convenience store beat-down. As gruesome a bully as Jason was -- he does not remember the incident, he says -- he seems genuinely repentant. And it’s hard not to wonder if Glenn, his victim, has maybe spent too long blaming someone else’s actions for 20-plus years of his own choices.

Serious issues

Personal responsibility is a theme that dominates “High School Confidential.” Each episode focuses on one or two female students at Blue Valley Northwest High School in Overland Park, Kan., outside Kansas City.

But against the uncertainty captured in “Reunion,” “Confidential” feels relatively thin -- a shock, given the depth of issues the profiled young women face, from alcohol use to pregnancy to serious health problems. (No boys are profiled.)

A serenity hangs over “Confidential” -- on it, the high school experience is discrete, a problem to be solved. Each episode concludes with a first-person assessment of the four years; thus far, none of the subjects has concluded that the issues they faced in high school will stay with them through the coming years.

In this time of louche, eager-to-perform rich kids on “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills,” and their fictional counterparts on “Gossip Girl,” the urge to resist sensationalism, both in tone and text, is noble. (Home-video footage, shot by the girls and their peers, is spliced in for a sometimes creepy touch of verite.)

But it is also naive, even if the discussions of drinking and sex are refreshingly honest. (Being photographed or videotaped holding a beer has remained a constant teen trope the last two decades -- it pops up regularly on both shows.)

Even MTV’s “Made,” the lifestyle-makeover show that has just returned to the channel, feels more attuned to the frailties of teenage life.

By contrast, “Confidential” is bogged down by structural flaws -- it is clumsy in editing, in its use of voice-over and in its narrative construction.

This week’s subject, Courtney, feels like prime documentary material -- an overachieving cheerleader and soccer player and older sister to two. “She carries the weight of the entire family,” her boyfriend says. “It comes from being the oldest.”

But falling in with the cheerleaders leads her to try drinking. When she’s caught, she gets suspended, causing her to miss most of varsity soccer tryouts. Then her sister, a year younger, gets pregnant while in the 10th grade (she carries to term and gives the child up for adoption; abortion is not an option in this Catholic family).

But even after all this, by graduation Courtney’s staring ahead with full certainty: “There’s been a lot of little bumps in the road, but I’m really glad I got over those, because it made me a much better person.”

But such is the folly of youth -- no perspective. And though tying up loose ends might make for clean television, it’s ultimately dishonest. Maybe one hour (or less) just isn’t enough to fully capture four years of complexity. Instead, each girl is reduced to one, maybe two traumas that they -- successfully -- fight to overcome. Little do they know, though, that this is just the beginning.