Secret Life of the American Teenager, The (TV Series) (DVD)

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This one-hour teen drama is the brainchild of Brenda Hampton, who created "7th Heaven." But it plays like the "Beverly Hills 90210" for a new generation of curfew dodgers and drama queens.

All the teens are drop-dead gorgeous, with nary a hair out of place and no pimple this side of the Pecos. They all have twice the poise and "cool" of anyone in any normal high school, and even the losers are more together than anyone I sat with during lunches at my high school cafeteria. And I was at the COOL table (yeah, right). When they talk, they don't have conversations, they banter, and some of them wear so much lip gloss that they're just one layer away from toppling over. They all exude so much sex appeal that you wonder how the cast keeps from jumping each other's bones between takes.

In "Beverly Hills 90210" style, it's all about sex: who likes whom, who wants to date whom, who's cheating on whom, and who's parents would have a cow if they knew about "x." Like "Beverly Hills 90210," the only parents in evidence are either extremely cool or slightly eccentric. And they're having sex and affairs and divorces and trying their darnedest not to appear to have double standards.

"The Secret Life of the American Teenager" isn't terribly secret. Everyone gossips, and if someone kissed someone else after school the whole world knows by the 6 o'clock news. Which is to say that if you're a teen or tween and you like soap operas, you'll probably warm to this series. But it struck me as more than a little ironic that it airs on ABC Family. Most of these teens say "no" to drugs and booze, but they say an emphatic "yes" to anything having to do with those raging hormones. Call it selective family values. The show is rated TV-14, with parental discretion advised, and that's because sex comes up as often as it does. I mean, when two parents who are divorcing have a physical reconciliation in their garage and we see them under the covers talking about great "garage sex," that's pretty frank stuff, even for 14 year olds. Heck, even for 18 year olds. I still remember being grossed out by the thought of my parents "doing it," and, like any other kid, doing the math and thinking that if our family had three kids, then our parents must have "done it" three times. So have times changed that much to where kids apparently aren't grossed out by the idea of their parents having sex, or is this show just a little edgier than the creator, writers, and producers imagined?

Shailene Woodley stars as Amy Juergens, who got pregnant in Season One in a one-night stand at a summer band camp (parents, beware!) and spent most of the first season in denial. The cocky SOB that got her pregnant is the local "player," a kid named Ricky (Daren Kagasoff) who knows what to say and do to get a girl to make an exception in his case. Throughout seasons one and two he has his paws on several girls. But this bad boy isn't dad boy material. It's the nerdy Ben Boykewich (Ken Baumann) who's the quintessential nice guy that finishes last but is willing to stand up and take on the responsibilities of being in a committed relationship, and season two begins with a wedding. Sort of.

These kids all get fake IDs and a couple of 15 year olds get married at a we-marry-anyone chapel and party in a hotel room. No one is drinking, but they all have fake IDs. More selective family values? What happens next pretty much tells the story of this series: the dads of the teens find out and knock on the door. They break up the party, but they don't bust any heads doing it. There's no cursing, and no yelling, even. Then again, when Shailene's parents have problems, there's not much yelling there either. The father, George (Mark Derwin), is a sophomoric, grinning idiot who verbally bullies his wife (Molly Ringwald) so much that she finally says she wants a divorce, and she wants him out of the house. What does he do? He moves into their garage, and even installs a urinal in there. "The garage belongs to the man," he blusters. "Don't they teach that in Women's Studies?" he derides, referring to the college major she quit to marry him. "How stupid do you have to be to study women when you're a woman?" And Anne's reaction when she sees this bully's set up housekeeping in her garage? Put it this way: I get more upset when one of the Cubs overpaid underachievers takes a called third strike with men in scoring position. But that's all part of the ABC Family values. Sex is okay (as it is on that other family values channel, Fox) but drinking and drugs and shouting are a no-no.