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1''The Best Years'' is a Canadian {{teen drama}} series set in Boston, Massachusetts. The show revolves around Samantha Best, who receives a scholarship to attend the fictional Ivy League college, Charles University, despite bouncing between foster homes for ten years. The series lasted from May 2007 to May 2009, for a total of 21 episodes across two seasons.
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3The series was created by Aaron Martin (one of the producers and writers of ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration''). It aired on Creator/GlobalTelevisionNetwork in Canada and on Creator/{{Noggin}}'s teen block, The N, in the United States.
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5Outdoor scenes from the show were filmed on the campus of the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, as well as the University of Toronto, and interior scenes of the campus were re-created at the Toronto Film Studios.
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7Samantha Best grew up in foster care after her parents passed away ten years earlier. Her strong, outgoing personality makes it easy for her to make friends. Samantha almost immediately befriends the rest of the show's cast. Her newfound friendships and her enrollment in the university become rocky after a drunken accident that causes another student's death, but with luck, honesty, loyalty, and determination, her status at the school was saved, yet her friendships remained rocky.
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9The subsequent episodes create strong character development, showing that each character has their own negative side as well as positive, while sticking to very realistic storylines.
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12!!This TV show provides examples of:
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14* CharacterDevelopment
15* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Poppi, the nerdy/quirky R.A.
16* DarkAndTroubledPast: Samantha
17* DefrostingIceQueen: As a part of the second season retool, Kat becomes much sweeter, completely dropping the jerkass aspects of her character, and Alicia is still a RichBitch but her personality is now played for comedic effect.
18* DysfunctionalFamily: The O'Sullivans
19* LighterAndSofter: The second season dropped the darker content (cocaine addiction, child molestation, etc) and focused more on romance.
20* NiceGuy: Noah
21* PutOnABus: Dawn, Devon, and Trent were dropped for the second season. It was explained that Dawn went back to Hollywood, Devon was signed to a soccer team in Europe, and Trent opened a coffee bar in San Francisco.
22* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Samantha learning that she is the niece of Dorothy O'Sullivan toward the end of the first season]]
23* {{Retool}}: The second season replaced half the cast and became more of a rom-com than a "serious issues" soap.
24* TimeSkip: Season two takes place eight months after the end of season one with Sam having missed most of the school year.

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