Recently I discovered yet another gem of a series from the UK that has had me enthralled and staying up to the wee hours of the night to watch season 1 in an effort to catch up to the progress of season 2. The series isn’t too well known here in the states at the moment (at least, not outside social media circles, namely Tumblr), though it’s become a big hit in the UK. The show is set in the 1990s and follows the exploits of sixteen year old Rae Earl, a girl living in a small town in England with her mother and new stepfather, trying to navigate the waters of adolescence and growing up, fitting in, and dealing with relationship issues–at the outset, nothing too groundbreaking or original. We’ve seen this format done countless of times. Where the show really sets itself apart is in its willingness to tackle some pretty dark and heavy issues head on, of the kind that most other shows may only allude to or superficially treat.

Our first introduction to Rae is made at the psychiatric institution where she had been spending the last several months of her life after having made a suicide attempt. She is being released back into the world after having been declared improved and ready to resume her life, though we quickly find out that the incredibly difficult work of recovery has only just begun. We also find out that Rae is, by her own description, fat. With the near absence of body type diversity in most media, this is truly a remarkable thing, particularly in the female bildungsroman-esque genre. One may remember a few shows that had body image as a central theme and a protagonist who didn’t fit typical Hollywood norms, such as Ugly Betty, which enjoyed a fairly successful run but was cancelled after four seasons, and what seemed like a promising series from ABC Family’s Huge about a girl attending weight loss camp which didn’t make it past the first season. Most of the shows today featuring young adult female leads still fail to adequately represent “non-normative” bodies, among other things, and inclusive in this failure is the representational lack of “non-normative” peoples’ unique struggles, interiorities and perspectives. These sorts of issues tend to get ignored or become anecdotal offshoots to the main storyline, if represented at all. My Mad Fat Diary is therefore making an important statement: these issues deserve to be dramatized, and they can be done so in a thoughtful and honest manner that still makes for very entertaining TV.

But we learn a lot more about Rae through another trope we have all seen, but that is done remarkably well here, namely the recitation of entries from her diary to the audience. It is through her own honest and unfiltered words and thoughts that I think the show shines and surprises. We learn that Rae is really quite funny and is in many ways the the definition of a 90s indie alternative-loving, candid cool kid. One of my favorite aspects of her is her openly raunchy thoughts and expression of her sexuality, flouting any conceptions that girls are supposed to be virtuously-minded, modest beings, majestically above their male counterparts who stereotypically cannot keep their pants in check. Of course, we learn a lot of the hard and heartbreaking realities of Rae’s life, such as her self harm and uneasy relationship to food, and her insecurities being seen and judged by others. Her recovery process is brought out in full force through her meetings with her therapist, which play an important role in the series, and while again not a very new trope, continually surprise me with the weight and reality of the issues being dealt with.

Inevitably, we all see ourselves in Rae. Whether we have experienced any of her problems personally or not, we are forced to commiserate when she speaks to us so plainly and directly, and we become attached to the “I” she speaks of in her diary entries. She is far from the perfectly sympathizable protagonist, and we are often made aware of her shortcomings–her own judgmental nature, her disregard of others’ feelings, and her sometimes reckless behavior. And yet, it is this aspect of Rae too that we may recognize and have experienced, and which make her much more real, much more believable.

The season 2 series finale is scheduled to air on March 31. A show this good, I’m expecting, will be renewed for another season. We need it, not just to find out what happens between Rae and Finn (although this is extremely important, mind you), but also because there are hardly any other shows like it being aired. We need it because these issues matter and deserve to be examined, and because I shouldn’t have to scour the internet for the latest episode of an obscure-in-America show that showcases young adults I can, you know, actually relate to.