THE TV COLUMN : Secret Life’s secret’s out; second season order’s in
Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Secret Life of the American Teenager has struck a chord with viewers and ABC Family is singing along, ordering 13 more episodes.
The freshman series airs at 7 p. m. today on the cable channel. The 10-episode first season will run until Sept. 9, so there’s still time for you to check out all the fuss before the show takes a break and returns in January.
Why only 10 episodes ? Cable series’ seasons are usually shorter than their broadcast cousins. But when you think about it, even broadcast seasons these days seem to be two or three seasons in one.
There’s a big fall debut, a long break over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, a return in January, a break at midseason where another series or a shortrun reality show airs, then the big finish in April and May.
A series has to stretch 22 episodes over the eight-month period of a season.
A typical broadcast network freshman program will only get a six- or 13-episode order upfront anyway. It’s one way a network has of hedging its bet.
A program pitch might look just swell on paper, but there are many variables that make or break a show. A pilot could look like a winner in April and fizzle abysmally when it debuts in the fall. Fewer episode orders allow a network to pull the plug early and limit its losses.
On the downside, fewer orders smack of less confidence in the success of a program.
Networks give positive lip service to every new show they order, but if they don’t put their money where their hyperbole is, it frequently shows.
Producers and creators of a new show get network “notes” every day. These are suggestions on how to “improve” your stew from all the “expert” cooks at the network. And networks believe they have a lot of experts.
Sometimes these suggestions actually improve a program. Other times they are the kiss of death since a program created by a committee is rarely worth watching.
Back in the day, a network would have enough faith in its decision to greenlight a series that it ordered an entire season at once. That gave a program the opportunity to find its legs, attract an audience, make midcourse corrections and establish itself.
These days, with so much competition for a fractured audience, a program frequently has to make an immediate impact or it’s ripped from the schedule, put on the shelf and then brought back to burn off leftover episodes, or simply set adrift on the hiatus ice floe to disappear in the fog and never be seen again.
It’s a cruel, cruel business.
However, every now and then a little show pops up that didn’t look all that spectacular on paper but found a place with the audience anyway.
On paper, it looks exceedingly silly to have a ballroom-dancing show featuring has-been celebrities partnered with unknown professionals. Who’d ever watch such a thing like that ? We knew the Brits would. They had a series titled Strictly Come Dancing that was immensely popular. I don’t even know what the title means. Maybe it’s lost in translation.
Today, the various exported versions of Strictly Come Dancing are huge hits around the world. Dancing With the Stars returns to ABC at 7 p. m. Sept. 22 with a three-night live premiere “event.” The big announcement revealing this season’s celebrities will be made Friday on Good Morning America.
Aside: Note that ABC labels the premiere an “event.” There are so many “events” on TV these days that a regular episode of a series (no matter how special ) doesn’t stand a chance. TV needs to invent a new word for something special. Maybe “eventisode,” or “extravaganevent.”
Evidently, ABC Family considers The Secret Life of the American Teenager special. The show was renewed after only three episodes aired. That’ll make a total of 23 episodes — about a normal season for a broadcast series.
The fuss can be puzzling. The series, from 7 th Heaven’s Brenda Hampton, isn’t really plowing any new ground. The show deals with family relationships.
Shailene Woodley, 16, plays a pregnant 15-year-old and Molly Ringwald, 40, plays her mother. (Isn’t it refreshing to have age-appropriate actors in the roles ?) The acting isn’t especially Emmy-worthy and the dialogue can get heavy-handed, even laughingly moralistic. Yet, the series debuted with 2. 7 million viewers and climbed to 3. 6 million. That’s Big Hit territory for a cable series. Some note that the season average has even topped The CW’s highly publicized Gossip Girl. The middle-class teens on Secret Life seem far more accessible than the self-centered elite on Gossip Girl. Perhaps the positive message of Secret Life resonates. The message is of a shy, gawky, 15-yearold geek who had one night of bad judgment at band camp and is taking responsibility. The show has layers. There’s a comely Christian cheerleader who has pledged to Jesus that she’ll wait until marriage. Her frustrated Christian boyfriend promptly goes off to satiate his needs in the arms of the promiscuous school vixen. There’s one father having an extramarital affair and an abused boy who fights his rage by bedding every girl who’ll slow down. If all of this seems like one big sermonizing Afterschool Special, then note that each episode ends with Woodley giving us a public service announcement about something the episode touched on. Still, there’s something about the series. Check it out. The TV column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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