The Secret Life of the American Teenager

[Eli]

So, from the producers behind "7th heaven" a few years back, comes a new abc primetime drama; "The secret life of the American teenager". First episode aired yesterday, anyone seen it yet?

Basically it's about Amy, a fifteen year old, typical "good girl" in high school. Amy plays in the marching band, and at band camp she has sex with the marching band drummer, Rick. This leads to her becoming pregnant, which basically is the main storyline of this show. There's also another guy who joins the marching band in order to have a shot at going out with Amy; Grace and her boyfriend Jack, who are both Christians (there's generally a lot of Christianity circulating around in the show) and determined to get married before they have sex. With various results...

I saw it because I wanted to give the show a chance, and I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and after watching the first episode I think I'm gonna develop a love/hate relationship with this show, just like I did with "7th heaven".

I think what makes me kinda hate it is that the show basically is a high school centered "7th heaven". The setting is slightly different and there are new characters, and they actually use the word "sex" instead of having the characters talk around the word and turn ready so we all know when to insert the word without it actually being said, but other than that it was very much "7th heaven".

Seriously, the directing, the dialogue and the editing, it could have been taken out of any "7th heaven" episode! And the music... Oh, the music... I'm still trying to figure out (Seriously, I'm not joking) whether they actually used the music from "7th heaven", or if they just came up with really similar music.

But back to "TSLOTAT", these annoying similarities aside; the show is okay. I doubt it will make it to my list of favourite shows any time soon, but by all means, it's an okay way to fill a Wednesday afternoon if you have nothing else to do. Kinda like... You know, that other show...

What I think is a shame is that they build the entire show around a storyline that very much has an expiration date; it's limited how long they can keep this one storyline fresh.

The show does get a star in my book compared to "7th heaven" because it is much less one-sided, that's for sure. Still a bit too right-wing for me, but better and less provocative. After one episode that is though.

I think I will keep watching it (at least for a few more episodes) just to see where this is going. It's an okay show, but I doubt we will get more than one season. Maybe two because abc seems to like these shows, and if they decide to axe it there's always the CW ready to pick up the leftovers, like last time.

But if "Hidden palms" couldn't even make it as a mid-season fill in for the CW before it was canceles, I doubt this show will make it.

But then again, I'm more liberal than most Americans, so maybe this will become a big hit in the US.