ABC Family’s No. 1 original series of all time, “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” returns tonight with all the quality intact, and it remains, as it was last season, simply the best teen drama on TV. Even though the series revolves around 15-year-old Amy (Shailene Woodley), who gets pregnant the first time she has sex (at band camp yet!), it is – when compared to the smarminess of “Gossip Girl” and “90210,” nearly Shakespearean.
That is not simply because those other shows are so tacky and so close to soft core that I worry that dirty old men DVR them for those lonely nights, but because “Secret Life” actually has realistic, good kids who can get into bad situations.
Last season we watched as Amy made the decision to keep and raise her baby when it’s born, even though it would basically destroy whatever teen life she had ahead. Adoption was not an option, much to the disappointment of her parents (Molly Ringwald and Mark Derwin).
On tonight’s season opener, “The Secret Wedding of the American Teenager,” Amy and Ben (Ken Bauman), who isn’t the baby’s father, decide to elope. Yes, they are 15, but they live in Nevada, where cheesy no-questions-asked wedding chapels dot the landscape the way cacti did before, well, wedding chapels (not to mention casinos) dotted the landscape.
Of course, the couple still needs fake IDs, and it turns out that their school’s resident nerdy A/V squad kid has a fake ID biz on the side. Hilarious.
And that is what is so great about this brilliantly written show – as serious and potentially tragic as the main storyline is – the subplots can be funny, serious and everything in between without ever resorting to cheap, totally inappropriate sex scenes among children. And it’s for this reason that the show can actually use kids who aren’t of legal age to play ninth graders. And the whole family can watch the show together without being embarrassed; the great dialogue is not reserved just for the kids.
Take this exchange between Amy’s separating parents, Anne and George, after Anne announces that she is going to find a job, and no, she will not raise Amy’s child while Amy goes about her life.
“You know if you want [a job] as a philosopher,” George mocks referring to Anne’s college major, “you’re gonna need to finish that degree.”
“It wasn’t philosophy. It was women’s studies,” Anne hisses back.
“Well,” sneers George, “obviously you didn’t finish that either, or I wouldn’t still be waiting for a cup of coffee.” The casting is just terrific too, with 1980s and ’90s series survivors Josie Bisset, John Schneider and Ernie Hudson fitting in nicely with newly-minted teen actors. It’s hard to find quality writing and realistic, vulnerable characters on TV lately, and to find them in a teen drama is particularly wonderful.
Cudos to Brenda Hampton (“7th Heaven“) for creating and producing such a fine show, and also to ABC Family for having the courage to produce something decent when others are picking through the trash for ideas.
“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”
Tonight at 8 on ABC Family