TV is the New Reading

‘Secret Life’ gets a

little shrill, preachy

In “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” Amy – the shy good-girl French horn player – realizes that the terrible, less-than-a-minute, didn’t-even-know-she-was-having-it-til-it-was-over sex she had with a drummer this one time at band camp left her pregnant.

Let me stop the show right there.

It’s absolutely true that someone can get pregnant on their very first sexual encounter. It’s just unlikely. And the rest of the show unfolds like a bad after-school special. People who pledge their virginity to one another are betrayed by their hormones. God’s forgiveness must be begged for such sinful behavior. Etc.

Yes, teen pregnancy is one of those things that can have a major impact on young lives. Usually the conception is not so immaculate. See, Amy is pregnant but she doesn’t have to take any responsibility for the sex because the father, Ricky, is a foster child whose father abused him and so now he’s just having one-night stands with anyone who will ... what, sit still next to him unsupervised for less than a minute?

Meanwhile, Amy’s dad is one of those cliches who yells at Amy’s little sister about a slutty ensemble that (gasp!) shows off her belly button. “You think it’s sexy?” he demands. “You’re not sexy! Sexy means you’re ready to have SEX and you’re NEVER going to be ready to have SEX!”

You can figure out from that exchange how many room-temperature conversations the man has had with his daughters on the subject.

In other subplots, Adrian, a “bad girl,” is pressuring Jack, a hormone-fueled good-boy quarterback to leave Grace, his good-girl Christian girlfriend. And there are promise rings and bets that people will date each other and an Asian girl who spouts teen sex statistics like the Kinsey report.

And Amy and her friends’ reactions to her pregnancy run the entire gamut, once they’ve dismissed the idea of her getting an abortion completely out of hand. They can’t tell her mom or a doctor! Instead, they hatch a plan wherein Amy will seduce that nice boy who seems to like her, and who asked her out – on a date! (the nice boy, incidentally, who is falling all over himself to get seduced by someone – indeed, anyone). Then later, when she “discovers” the pregnancy, they’ll get married!

Why, that’s so crazy it’s bound to work.

The last minutes of the show were the most useful. All of the overwrought ridiculousness was shoved to the side and it was just Shailene Woodley, the actress who plays Amy, talking to the camera, telling parents and teens to sit down and talk to each other about sex.

I wish I could recommend this show. The show is cute, and it’s entirely possible it could build a lot of dialogue between parents and teens. But the one-note focus on sex, sex, sex was getting a little shrill by the end of the first hour, and they have at least seven more planned.

My advice is to watch the first couple episodes or so, then leave on a month-long family vacation with lots of unescapable car time to talk about the show, and on your way out the door, forget to set the DVR.

“The Secret Life of the American Teenager” airs at 7 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC Family.

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