The Secret Life of the American Teenager - Pilot

How secret can the life of an American teen be when every (stereotypical) group of friends is discussing the same topic, sex!, in their not so quiet voices, in the hallways of their high school? Ridiculous. Yeah, I went to Catholic school, but still. It was all so absurd to watch. It was worse when Ben talked to the new guidance counselor about joining band so he can befriend and deflower Amy. At least he could’ve said he wanted to hook up with her. But nope, it was like there was a quota for the word sex. Had it been a drinking game I’d probably just be recovering from all the tequila shots in time for tonight’s episode.

The whole episode felt like a bad teen movie with a message- an after school special. The lead girl, Amy, is the pregnant teen and she’s likeable. Her friends are really annoying. I can’t believe the red head is the same actress from Still Standing. I think she needs to stick with comedy. The Jessica Simpson girl, she’s blonde, Christian and received a promise ring from her dad (parents, to be fair), won me over a bit when she made a joke about asking her mom if oral sex is considered sex. She will lose points if in the next episode if her dad is talking about her boobs. Yeah, you’ve all heard the real Jessica Simpson’s dad talk about his daughters in an inappropriate manner. The stereotypical good looking football player of course dates the Jessica Simpson cheerleader. Only he doesn’t want to wait for her to finish medical school before they have sex (take another shot!). Ricky, the stereotypical good looking bad boy dates the stereotypical pretty mean girl. Ricky is the one who impregnated Amy during band camp over the summer. Don’t feel too sad for the girlfriend because she has sex (is the tequila still burning as it goes down?) with Christian girl’s boyfriend.

All of that and more is revealed in the pilot. I’m going to watch the second episode in hopes that they have more Molly Ringwald. Maybe she had a sleepover at her house, invited Brenda Hampton over and they watched all of Molly’s movies to show her how the teen story is told? Maybe they even threw in Clueless for good measure! Please just make these teens less stereotypical and more interesting. Make them like actual teens.