Shows you were excited about and then disappointed after they aired

[Schmoopie]

I was really looking foreword to "Secret Life of the American Teenager" because of Molly Ringwald. Here is a copy of a post that I just posted in that thread. I thought it warranted more exposure and would be okay to discuss any other shows that had a good premise but were disappointing after they aired.

I tuned in for this show only because of Molly Ringwald. I grew up with her, idolizing her in "Sixteen Candles" and "Pretty In Pink". I'm 40, and from the interviews I had seen with Molly on "Good Morning America" (and other shows), this is supposed to be something the whole family can watch together.

I beg to differ...

I watched exactly four episodes and I am through. I agree, they are addicting at first, but after a while, the constant use of the word "sex" in every single sentence made me ill. And the entire show seemed to revolve around sex. Everyone wanted to have it; even the counselor talked about it (the one everyone thought was so "cute"). He seems like a jerk, the way he talks to the students. Counselors are supposed to provide support and guidance. I cannot believe that a station like ABC Family would allow a show to air that has a student walk into a counselor's office and tell him that he wants to lose his virginity to a girl. Worse, the counselor seemed to think it was okay. It was like the whole school is into sex (and the use of the word "Oral" is what made my jaw drop! ). Since when does ABC Family need to stoop so low as to say that it's okay for kids as young as 15 to have sex? And one of the female characters openly admits to the counselor that she has an addiction to sex? I think she needs SERIOUS counseling for that addiction.

I've been in high school and although it's been over 20 years, I know that being addicted to sex at the age of 16 is not normal. If it is, then I shudder to think what will happen to these kids in the future.

I realize that the premise of the show is that the main character becomes pregnant, but I was hoping that the show would focus on other matters too. Even a show like Beverly Hills 90210, which had plenty of sexual situations, didn't make that the sole topic and it was certainly never said repeatedly. I cringed when I heard Molly Ringwald say the word.

With the exception of a few, the characters in this show are absolutely horrible. Terrible role-models:

We have a cheerleader who is "in love" with her 16 year old boyfriend and they are talking seriously about marriage? And then he gets mad at her because she says she wants to wait until after med school? Does he seriously think they will even be together by that time?

This same girl is the one who's parents are so un-trusting of her that they buy her a "Promise ring" and make her promise to remain a virgin until marriage? She's only 16! And they are so over-protective that her going to the fair with a boy (even if it was a scam) is considered "a rough place"? Since when? "Little House on the Prairie" had episodes in which Laura and Mary went to the fair with boys.

Then Grace is accidentally caught on camera with the guy who picks her up after she's stranded. A big spectacle is made from the fact that he has no shirt on , and them being on camera is enough of a media frenzy that it's shown repeatedly? Come on!

And then there's the guy who asked Amy to the dance and after only one date, he's convinced that he's in love with her. Infatuated is more like it.

The parents on this show are worthless. Molly Ringwald and Mark Derwin are totally clueless when it comes to their daughters. Their younger one is said to be thirteen, but looks like she's 17, and dresses like a street walker.

And I'm forgetting one very important subject here. The addition of religion into this show. Seems ironic that these sexually active kids are so into God and religion and going to church.

"Joan of Arcadia" was a wonderful show that dealt with interactions with God, but Amber Tamblyn's Joan never went to church. Therefore, the religion aspect wasn't shoved down our throats as it is in this series. The way this series reads, it's like "Joan of Arcadia" crossed with a sex-education class video.

Even Molly Ringwald can't save this show.

Andrea

PS: Here's a review from the LA Times that I found that states my point exactly...


'The Secret Life of the American Teenager'
'The Secret Life of the American Teenager' is one-track-mind adolescence as scripted by grown-up television writers.
By Robert Lloyd, Times Television Critic
July 1, 2008
What with the infamous teen pregnancies of Gloucester, Mass., and tween queen Jamie Lynn Spears having her baby, and the success of last year's “Juno,” a TV series about a pregnant high school freshman should not come as a shock. Television has been getting young girls pregnant for years, anyway.

Brenda Hampton, of the nearly unstoppable “7th Heaven,” is the creator of ABC's “The Secret Life of the American Teenager," which gives us half-gawky Amy (Shailene Woodley), who has lost her virginity at band camp to school Lothario Ricky (Daren Kagasoff). As the series begins, she returns home with a pregnancy test hidden in the bell of her French horn. Her waiting mother is played by Molly Ringwald, who was once famously an American teenager herself, and indeed played a pregnant one in the 1988 film "For Keeps." She is why some of us will watch this in the first place.

In tonight's opening episode, however, Ringwald is only a fleeting, sub-June Cleaver presence. She microwaves a pot roast, frets that Amy is spending too much time at band practice -- "You're only young once, you should have a little fun," she says as the irony bells ring out -- and agrees with her husband that their 13-year-old younger daughter (India Eisley) should not go around displaying her 13-year-old navel. (We are allowed to see it, however.)

The tone of the pilot careens between an after-school special and "American Pie," with a bit of "Pretty in Pink" grabbed along the way. It is almost all about sex -- and a little bit about family, but the subject there is largely sex, as well, and why it's not for the young. The sexually active kids we meet are either made unhappy by having it, or they're having it because they're unhappy. (Ricky's compulsion to sleep with every girl who crosses his path is shown to spring from his having been molested by his father.) Amy confides of her deflowering: "I'm not even sure it was sex. It wasn't fun and definitely not like what you see in the movies."

Or they're unhappy because they've never had it. In a most improbable conversation (in a show full of them, nerdy wiseacre Ben (Kenny Baumann) -- who has decided almost arbitrarily to pursue Amy by getting himself into the marching band -- tells his guidance counselor: "To be perfectly honest, Mark, it's all motivated by the fact that I'm 15, I'm a virgin, and if I want to have a sex life I've got to start somewhere."

Or, like guilty Christian football hero Jack (Greg Finley), they're unhappy because they want sex in the first place. Jack is distressed by the fact that his purity-ring-wearing cheerleader girlfriend Grace (Megan Park) won't sleep with him until they're married, and won't get married until she's out of medical school. (He inquires whether oral sex is sex, to which she sensibly answers that it is.) In spite of a prayer offered in a pregame football huddle ("Let us not be distracted by the women who are here to lead us into situations that will lead us into hell and destroy our souls forever"), he lets himself be seduced by Adrian (Francia Raisa), the school vamp and drum majorette. (She bites an apple at him, Eve-like.) Then he really goes to pieces.

Two performers stand out. Woodley is appealing as a kid in over her head. There is something quite touching in the way her face provisionally lights up as she hopefully grasps at straws. (No dice, though, she's definitely pregnant.) She's the girl you would usually cast as the little sister thrust into the big sister part.

The other is Park ("Life With Derek"), who makes a person out of a role that could easily read as a joke. She has a nice blend of daffiness, and is self-assured in a way that overcomes her being forced to assert and reassert her churchgoing and belief in Jesus. (It is supposed to make her a sort of brave oddball, I think -- "7th Heaven" was about a pastor's family, after all -- though the last I looked, there were plenty of Christians around.) Her father is played by John Schneider, who was a Duke of Hazzard and, more recently, Pa Kent, and her brother is played by Luke Zimmerman, who has Down syndrome.

For anyone other than a teenager looking for yet another mirror in which to regard a glorified version of themselves, "Secret Life" has, on the early evidence, little to offer. It feels thin, mechanical and confused. Even so, I am keeping my fingers crossed for the sake of Molly Ringwald. I would hope that once Amy makes her pregnancy known, Ringwald -- undoubtedly the only actress to have worked with both John Hughes and Jean-Luc Godard -- will have more interesting things to do, in a variety of flavors.

I have my doubts, though.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Andrea

[70s show watcher]

there was a show called boomtown a few years back and i remember . that in the summer before it aired my friend and i talked about how much we couldnt wait to see it and when it finally aired that fall my friend and i both said we wated all summer for that?

[catlover79]

My Big Fat Greek Life - the less said about that monstrosity, the better.

[Schmoopie]

"My Big Fat Greek Life" was an awful show! Actually when the movie came out, I think I 'pretended' to like it more than I actually did.

Andrea

[Ireneparalegal]

Caveman.

[Impressions]

Swingers.

[Chocoholic]

My Name is Earl. I loved the idea of the show, but I lost all interest after the first season.

[Mikado]

The PBS history of Television from last winter.... they tried to shove too long a timespan into too few eps and its showed in lack of content!

[Chocoholic]

I was really excited about watching the Super Bowl this year, but I was extremely saddened and disappointed at the end.

[Schmoopie]

Originally Posted by Homeriffic

I was really excited about watching the Super Bowl this year, but I was extremely saddened and disappointed at the end.

Not a Giants' fan, huh?

Andrea

[Chocolate Moose]

Catlover, i really liked that Fat Greek LIfe show. I even bought the DVD !

[PrettyinPink55]

A show a couple years ago on ABC called The Nine...great premise, but it just wasn't what I expected.

Also, another show from a few years back on Fox called Reunion.

[treky]

"ENTERPRISE". The pilot was ok but that's all. And that first season had 3 or 4 good episodes. Then when they "retooled" it slightly in the 2nd season, (including changing the name to "STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE") it was just slightly better, but not much.

[Tubehead]

flashpoint. i thought it would be like numbers. its kind of boring. i might try aging see if its get better.

[ryan423]

My Name Is Earl - I stopped watching after season one