Every Monday night – when there's a new episode – I sit down to watch The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Don't ask me why, the reasons are too complicated to explore. I don't mind telling you however that the show perplexes me in the extreme, and not just the plots, the way the whole thing develops.
Take a look at last night's episode, here we are, apparently in the middle of season three (I would argue that it may only be season two as at the end of what they're calling season one they said they'd be back with the rest of the season in a few months, and then that next set of episodes became season two). The episode was centered on the school year finishing and what people were going to do over the summer. Many of the kids are apparently going away, and the episode description for next week talks about it being the end of the summer.
To me, that's odd. How is that not the end of the season? How did the producers plan to have the summer take place in the middle of the season? What were they thinking? Have they not watched TV before? It's awkward, tell me it's not awkward, you can't, can you? It's not a problem to do a summer season, to have a high school-based show focus on what happens one summer (like some swell jobs at Malibu Sands), but to skip the summer which takes place in the middle of the season… weird.
I have to wonder if last night was supposed to be the end of a season and things got rearranged by the network. To me, that sounds plausible, perhaps not less weird, but certainly plausible. Why? Because you don't finish a year of high school in the front half of a season, skip the summer, and then start the next year of high school during the rest of the season. It's awkward.
Article comments
1 - KKQUART
I wanted to see the summer!!!!
What happened with Ben, Amy, etc. STUPID!!!!!
2 - Susie Busskohl
I am so disappointed in what the show has turned into. It is a constant bombardment on sex, sex, sex. You, ABC are sending a terrible message to our youth. The best character in the show with values, Grace's father, was killed off. Grace, the virgin Christian ended up having sex.
You have turned this show into a liberal, morally empty, plotless show. Sex outside of marriage leads to disaster in many ways and you owe it to the audience to show that side of teenage sex. Do we have any value system left in this country?
We will no longer watch this garbage.
3 - Jordan Richardson
Do we have any value system left in this country?
Well gosh, if you can't find your values on television shows designed to pull ratings, where can you find them?