As a guide to the psyche of US television-drama scriptwriters, this week's offerings speak volumes about their willingness to rely on stereotypes in the pursuit of ratings and cheap laughs.
The hormone-charged corridors of Woodrow Wilson High are where school friends Dino Whitman, Jonathan Fields and Ben Connor spend their days, battling with the pressures of growing up, in teenage drama Life As We Know It (Star World, Tuesdays at 8pm). The phrase 'pressures of growing up' is clearly a euphemism for the 'pressures of having to spend every weekday at what, if it weren't for the presence of our three male heart-throbs, could be an all-girl school at which the dress-code is 'tight' and 'short''. Thrown into the mix are several cute teachers, none of whom look much older than the students and one of whom becomes the object of Connor's desire. Her come-hither looks and nonplussed attitude when he catches her changing after a dance lesson only serve to stoke his obsession.
Whitman is the handsome jock who has no problem with the ladies - or so he tells his on-again, off-again girlfriend as she makes for the door when his wanderlust gets the better of him. So begins a standard recurring theme in family-oriented teen dramas - he wants sex and she doesn't - with Whitman's protestations that any girl would be glad to have his hand up their top delivered straight from the Sledgehammer School of Charm.
Not surprisingly, his brash boast gets him the cold shoulder until he hits on the novel idea of apologising for his behaviour in the belief his sincerity will leave his helpless quarry weak at the knees. His ploy has almost paid off when, mid-smooch at the school fair, he is tapped on the shoulder by straight-A student Connor and they all rush off to find the artistic Fields rolling in the hay with his is-she, isn't-she squeeze, played by Kelly Osbourne, making her acting (outside of her family's reality-TV show) debut.
It's the treatment of Osbourne's character that will leave viewers under no illusions as to why young women are obsessed with the way they look. The perfectly healthy-looking character is the brunt of numerous 'fat' jokes among the boys and the put-upon Fields is left to defend his relationship with her.
Teen dramas have a target audience and a tried-and-tested formula. With Life As We Know It, the characters may have changed, but the song remains the same.
