- Release Date: December 30th, 2008
- Publisher: Walt Disney Video
- Price: $29.99 on Amazon (Buy It
)
- Rating: TV-14
- Run Time: 473 Minutes
- Special Features: On Set With the Cast, Free download of “It’s Over” by Jesse McCartney
- Starring: Molly Ringwald, Shailene Woodley, Kenny Baumann, Mark Derwin, India Eisley, Greg Finley II, Daren Kagasoff, Megan Park, Francia Raisa
- Genre: Teen Drama
This past summer a little show named The Secret Life of the American Teenager premiered on ABC Family. It ended up becoming ABC Family’s biggest hit of all time and brought in the highest ratings for the network in all time. While quite a few people raved about the show, I never really bothered to catch up on the show. With the second season premiering in January though along with receiving a preview copy of the first season on DVD, I was finally able to get caught up on the show. While the show has a lot of problems (more on that later) the show is still solid.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it is much like your typical teen drama. In this teen drama the main character (Amy) gets pregnant at the young age of 15. While trying to hide her predicament and deciding whether to tell her parents, she meets a boy named Ben who immediately falls in love with her. Amy and Ben are also joined by Amy’s parents and sister, Jack (the jock), Ricky (the womanizer and father of Amy’s baby), Grace (the Christian), and Adrian (the flirt).
By reading the description you should have a pretty good grasp on the show. You should also be starting to see a lot of similarities between The Secret Life of the American Teenager and many other teen dramas. This is the big problem with the show. While I like Amy, her family, and Ben; if I had my way I would honestly think about getting rid of everyone else. The rest of the cast is essentially stereotypes. You have your womanizer. You have your dumb jock. You have your flirt that uses her body instead of her mind despite actually being pretty intelligent. Finally you have the extremely religious Christian. If these character descriptions sound familiar at all it is because they are. These characters have been done time and time again. I wouldn’t mind one bit if they all were written off since I really don’t care for any of them. Too bad that it won’t happen in the second season. Maybe the show will be able to breath some originality into the characters.
While I honestly could do without half of the current cast; I have to admit that the rest of the cast is pretty good. Amy and Ben’s romance is intriguing and I think is easily the best part of the show. Shailene Woodley (Amy), Molly Ringwald (Amy’s Mom), Mark Derwin (Amy’s Dad), India Eisley (Amy’s sister), and Kenny Baumann (Ben) are also the best actors and actresses on the show.
Since this is a teen drama, many teens will be intrigued to watch The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Since we are a family friendly site after all, I do feel the responsibility to tell parents that while the show is targeting young teens, the show is TV-14 for a reason. Just based on the fact that one of the kids on this show is pregnant you should expect that sex is mentioned on the show quite a bit. While it isn’t distasteful, parents should take this into consideration in deciding whether their children should see the show.
As far as special features go, you really don’t get a whole lot. Along with all 11 first season episodes, you also get a special feature that goes on set with the cast. While the feature is not bad, it is only 6 minutes long. You also get a download of Jesse McCartney’s “It’s Over” but even with that the special features are definitely not worth the purchase of this dvd set.
What’s disappointing about The Secret Life of the American Teenager is that the show had the possibility to be a very good show. Too bad the show relied too heavily on stereotypes and created way too many cookie cutter characters. If only the show had actually breathed some creativity into some on the supporting characters the show could have been much better. As it is, if you like teen dramas and can stand some very generic supporting characters you still should get a lot of enjoyment out of the show and I would recommend that you pick up the first season on DVD. If you can’t stand generic characters, I would recommend that you pass and I don’t blame you one bit. In my opinion The Secret Life of the American Teenager is a solid teen drama which could have been much more.
