Learning that ABC Family was airing a new series, I was of two minds. On the one hand, it’s ABC Family – a network not exactly known for its high-class programming. On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying their fare as of late – I was a big fan of Greek which had its season finale a few weeks back, and I’m slowly but surely going to be posting Middleman commentary in time (And I’m quite enjoying it as well). So, figuring that I should at least give their latest series a try, I dug in.
What I found, however, is that the network is not the issue here: airing on ABC Family is no longer a curse, but Brenda Hampton certainly is. Best known for her eons-long stint running 7th Heaven, one of my most hated shows of all time, she brings to The Secret Life of the American Teenager a bag of tricks so lifeless and emotionless as to emaciate any interest the series could have driven. The show looks, feels, like 7th Heaven, and while it isn’t quite as preachy that seems more like pilot sins that will later be repented.
What Teenager lacks is what Greek had: for all of the show’s stereotypical storylines and love triangles and everything else, it was willing to treat all of it with both a sense of humour and a sense of respect. While there is some humour in the show’s first episode, and I think that it does respect a few of its characters, the former is isolated to one character and the latter is only created through hackneyed bait-and-switch mechanics. At the end of the day, there’s a central secret, but it doesn’t have any of the life that its title alludes to.
Cultural Learnings 