Over the years, and most recently with Awkward., MTV has tried its darndest to prove to the world that they "get" their teenage audience. It's no easy feat to capture the high school experience, but it shouldn't be rocket science, either. Let's take a look and see which of MTV's attempts at representing the four best years of our lives made the grade, and which were total failures.

Last night, ABC Family debuted a new series about a girl who gets super genetic powers on her sixteenth birthday and then ends up having to save her whole random race of genetic mutants from some other random enhanced beings who are chasing her down (or something like that). She also can die and come back to life (supposedly nine times... because her particular superpowers are cat-like). While we enjoyed the premiere of this summer romp for what it is, it definitely brought to mind more than a handful of other series that have come before it. (Keep in mind we're basing this on the pilot of the show, not anything from the book series.)

On Glee, Sue Sylvester plays the part of the big bad wolf at McKinley High. Will Schuester's greased hair quivers at the sound of Sue's footsteps. But, actually, all of Sue's antics have been done on TV before. In fact, she comes from a long line of obnoxiously self-absorbed women. Take a look at this line-up of outrageous older ladies and see the evolution for yourself:

If there is one thing I am looking forward to this season on Parks and Recreation, it has to be the return of Adam Scott as state auditor Ben Wyatt as a potential love interest for Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope. Scott might seem like a new face to most people, but his first appearance on Parks came at the end of his previous, much less watched comedy, Party Down on Starz. In it, Scott played Henry, a failed actor with only a beer commercial credit who was earning a living as a caterer in Los Angeles with coworkers who are all equally struggling to achieve their Hollywood dreams. While Party Down was loved by those who watched it, not many did, and so it got canceled. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons besides Adam Scott for anyone who loves Parks and Recreation to check out Party Down for the first time. In fact, here are six of them:

We've gotten so used to all of the classic TV reboots, from the on-the-air Hawaii 5-O to the in-the-works Munsters, that when somebody says they're making a new one, it's no longer a surprise. But when someone says they're doing the reverse of a classic show, well, that gets our attention. Fox has picked up the script to a show that's being called a "reverse Three's Company," and while we're not entirely sure that's an accurate description, given that it's about a Midwestern woman who moves in with three young dudes, it was enough to get us thinking about other classic shows that would stink as reboots, but could become fresh new TV if the scenarios are reversed.

While dinosaurs are still reasonably important to us, there was a time in our youth when they were the most fascinating things in the world. Director Steven Spielberg is looking to recapture a little of that excitement with his new TV series, Terra Nova, about a family from the future who time-travels back to the distant past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. While that sounds awesome to us -- we've been digging the British dino-series Primeval, which will return to TV in 2011 -- we're worried that it won't catch on with today's video-game-obsessed youth. So here's some advice we've plucked from the time stream of some Mesozoic Era TV shows that might ensure Terra Nova doesn't face extinction.

In news that comes as bitter irony for the cast of Southland, which was cancelled by NBC last year, the network has greenlit a new L.A.-based police drama series: Law & Order: Los Angeles. Yes, the L&O franchise will have four shows on the air again, with both SVU and Original Recipe returning this fall, and Criminal Intent hanging in there on USA. But what's to keep this new show from going the way of so many other Law & Order spin-offs over the years, as well as Dick Wolf's other law-enforcement dramas? They've already made a smart move by keeping the "L&O" prefix, but here are some other things they can learn from previous Wolf failures.

I have no good excuse as to why I had never seen the British Office before now. I watch more television than anyone I know, I love Ricky Gervais and most of my friends own a copy of the complete series. Also, I've been a huge fan of the American adaptation from the very beginning. So you can understand why, when all of the episodes of the original Office series were recently posted on Hulu, I was literally assigned to watch it.

ABC's remake of the alien invasion saga V is returning with more episodes -- and more ships! That's right, the Visitors are no longer just visiting, they're taking over. But aliens have been ruling our televisions for decades, so are we really that surprised? As a gesture of good will to our new alien overlords, here are some of our favorite alien visitors on TV, extra-terrestrials who once lived peacefully among us, but now permanently reside in our hearts.

What is with the TV industry's obsession with making shows out of movies released decades ago? And why make a new show from a movie that was already turned into a halfway decent TV series 20 years ago? Did the producers of the new Parenthood not witness the debacle that was Eastwick? (Apparently not.) Sure, some films have made a positive transition to television (M*A*S*H, Stargate, Friday Night Lights and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to name a few) but for every success story, there's a massive stinker that sucks the life out of the source material and dampens our fond memories of the cinematic original. While Parenthood might succeed (given its awesome cast), we're at least hoping that it doesn't follow the footsteps of these complete duds.