In this age of Facebook and MySpace—and, let’s face it, Gossip Girl—is there any teenager today with a truly secret life? I don’t remember seeing anyone texting or using cell phones or doing anything teens regularly do (except
obsess about sex) in the opening hour of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. This show would seem awfully stale and soggily simplistic even if we hadn’t already seen it all done much better in My So-Called Life, “Juno” and any
number of Afterschool Specials—not to mention John Hughes movies.

That last association comes courtesy of the casting of a so-far underused Molly Ringwald as the dutiful mom, who as the show begins is putting pot roast in the microwave while her 15-year-old band-geek daughter, Amy (the nicely pensive Shailene Woodley), discovers she’s got a bun in her own oven.

A good girl’s surprise pregnancy is a strong premise, but creator Brenda Hampton (7th Heaven) undercuts it by surrounding Amy with an uninspired ensemble of precociously cardboard classmates, who range from hormonally-distracted cutups and chirpy Christian saints to wily sirens, one of whom seduces a chaste quarterback while munching on an apple. Somehow, her name isn’t Eve.

There’s plenty of clumsy exposition giving stats about sexually active teens, but little dramatically to make it compelling. Even the callow drummer-boy stud who deflowered Amy at summer band camp is given a facile psychological explanation for his actions.

Secret Life so awkwardly blends the cutesy with the smarmy that you can’t help wondering if naming the football team “the Lancers” is meant as a phallic joke. In a show like this, even scoring probably has a double meaning.

 

The Secret Life of the American Teenager Series premiere Tuesday, 7/1, 8/7c, ABC Family 

Quicktakes:

• DON’T BOTHER: Some things are better off heard and not seen. Click & Clack’s As the Wrench Turns (premieres Wednesday, 7/9, PBS; check tvguide.com for listings) presents NPR’s endearing “Car Talk” jokesters Tom and Ray Magliozzi as a bumbling, oddly mirthless Abbott & Costello–like cartoon duo. In the episode I saw, there were cute jokes needling PBS pledge drives, but the political gags—involving characters with names like Phil Lander—were lame. These guys are better off interacting with real folks.

• DON’T MISS: One of director Sydney Pollack’s last interviews before his death in May, in which he’s charming but also pointed (“Listening and thinking is a big, underrated part of real acting”), launches the fine new series Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence (premieres Monday, 7/7, 8/7c, TCM). In these encounters, the critic encourages
filmmakers and stars to reflect on how movies influenced them and shaped their craft. Pollack’s reflections on “Tootsie” are especially delightful.