The Secret Life of the American Teenager TV show review
This show is a hot mess. With that first sentence said, I must add that I’ve never missed one single episode and I hope the show gets picked up for another season after its current one is over.
Are you confused? I’ll be happy to explain.
The thing about this show is that it’s so far from reality, so off kilter in terms of what’s a good show, that it’s hard to believe this garbage actually got picked up for more than half a season. There are a lot of hardcore fans of Secret Life who get angry when “fans” such as myself criticize it. In my defense, it’s like watching a train wreck--you can’t take your eyes away no matter how bad it is and even if there are body parts scattered about you still want to remain and see if there are survivors. The script is honestly just that bad. 95% of the show is centered around sex. Whether it’s a conversation about sex or sexual situations taking place it’s just a barrage of dialogue centered around sex sex sex sex sex. And not in a way that’s normal, either. Characters rattle off stats in the middle of their supposedly regular conversations as if they’d just done a google search on the topic right before they spoke to anyone. They repeat sentences they just said only in a different tone as if we wouldn’t have heard them the first time. There was a father that was encouraging his 15 year old son to get married to a pregnant girl and the baby wasn’t even his son’s.
In case you’ve never seen this show this is some dialogue between two random characters to give you an idea of just how bad things tend to get:
Person 1: “I heard that Amy and Ricky are getting married on the 4th of July.”
Person 2: “That’s a gay holiday.”
Person 1: “How is it a gay holiday?”
Person 2: “Fireworks, barbeques…”
Person 1: “Maybe Amy Juergens is gay.”
Person 2: “But she’s getting married to Ricky.”
Person 1: “Her mom is gay, so maybe Amy is gay, too.”
That’s not verbatim, but you get the drift. And yes, bam, like that, a rumor was sparked on the show. The saddest thing is, I’m not kidding and that mock convo really is an example of what goes on.
They turned their main character into an absolute bitch during the show’s second season and she was especially mean to the boy that was with her even though he wasn’t the father of her child. She is the most ungrateful little brat I’ve ever seen. She practically had a job handed to her, she’s always had so much support from her family and friends, and she had two guys that wanted to be there for her baby (and eventually for her) and she constantly complains to no end. I don’t think that I really have to say this, but most girls in real life who’ve had a baby at sixteen can only dream of being in the situation she’s in and all she does is whine about it being too hard.
The show’s creator, Brenda Hampton, stated that she’d rather have a bad show with good ratings than a good show with poor ratings. Again, that’s not a direct quote, but that’s the gist of it. So we have a person behind the scenes who really values quantity over quality and really doesn’t care if she has a lousy show or not (her entertainment legacy) just so long as someone’s watching. Wow, future filmmakers and writers take notes. I’ve never heard someone make such an asinine statement and I probably should stop watching the show on principle alone after having read what she said…but…I…can’t. Even its theme song is horrible, and if I could look away I would, but it’s a debacle that I seem to want to see through till the end.
