What I'm Watching:

Summer is here, and along with that comes summer TV programming. I love summer TV shows, because they are always just a little more lame than the stuff we watch during the rest of the year.

For example, last night I watched the first episode of "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". Catchy title, Molly Ringwald plays the mom, I thought I'd give it a try. I will say this: abc family definitely tried to please everyone in this one.

First off, there's the scandal in the very beginning of episode 1: the main teenage character is pregnant. I guess they figured that Juno was such a big hit, might as well see if it translates to TV. Then there's the two best friends, the perfect sidekicks. One smart, one smarty-pants. One white, one black. One skinny, one chunky. Kind of a tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum effect, but it works. I think so far they're my favorite part of the show, actually.

Then there's the boy who loves the preggers girl...he looks, acts, and speaks just like Stephen Colbert...coincidence? Doubtful.

Next comes the fast-speaking, quit witted Asian girl, a la Gilmore Girls. And the...I'll call her "friendly" majorette. (Did I mention these are a bunch of band kids? Yet another reason to love the show!)

And then there's the pretty blonde girl, and her jock boyfriend, but the catch here is that they are the only two people in school who don't seem to be, uh...."friendly"....that is, until the end of episode 1, when jock boyfriend hooks up with skanky majorette. The blonde girl is the seemingly only religious person in a high school of partiers; and she's awfully reminiscent of Lucy Camden from 7th Heaven.....and the dialoge is kind of the same....and- wait a minute-- halfway through the show I notice that the football coach is the same guy who plays the police chief on 7th Heaven! Yes, sure enough, this show is produced by none other than Brenda Hampton, executive producer of 7th Heaven. Go figure. I'll watch it anyway.

On to other shows, the anti-Brenda-Hampton show of the summer: Swingtown. A nice wholesome (OK, maybe not) show set in 1976 about a family who moves on up to the nice neighborhood and befriends Tom and Trina, a couple who convinces them to....well, the title kind of gives it away. It's got the scandalous smutty factor that we're missing from Desperate Housewives. However, the best part of this show is the soundtrack! They play the best of the best of the 70's hits.

Another great (yes, I'm using the term "great" very loosely here) one is the SoapNet series "MVP". It's basically a show about a hockey team and the drama that surrounds it: a dead team captain and his widow left penniless....her daughter falling for the new rookie, who has a trailer-trash girlfriend back home to send money to....a coke-snorting womanizer...and the new captian who has fallen for the random girl next door preschool teacher. Yes, all very realistic. But hey, it's SoapNet, what can we expect? Still, entertaining nonetheless.

And I'm waiting for the second installment of The Starter Wife to begin. Yes, I actually watched this trainwreck of a miniseries last summer, in all it's horrible acting, editing, and even worse storyline. And yes, I'll watch it again this summer.

So what I'm basically saying in all of this is when you are flipping channels and you come across some lame Lifetime movie or an even worse series and you think "Who watches this crap?" The answer: I do.