New TV series takes another look at teen pregnancy

By WALT BELCHER
Media General News Service
Published: July 2, 2008

Television producer Brenda Hampton calls her new drama ’7th Heaven’ with sex.”

Hampton, who may be the last champion of keeping the family drama alive, hasn’t sold out. Her characters on “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” will talk a lot about sex, but there won’t be any steamy scenes.

The series is being carried by ABC Family, and the target audience is teens and their parents.

It’s basically a love story and cautionary tale about teen pregnancy. It also seems forced and filled with stereotypes.

This well-meaning effort is aimed at families and teens trying to cope in a culture where 20 percent of 15-year-old girls and 25 percent of 15-year-old boys are sexually active.

“American Teenager” is about what happens after vulnerable 15-year-old “good girl” Amy (Shailene Woodley) comes home from camp pregnant from her first and only sexual experience.

Hampton, who created and ran the socially responsible “7th Heaven” for 11 seasons, knows how to turn contemporary issues into soap opera fodder.

She’s lined up an interesting mix of teen characters.

Amy, supposedly smart and sensible, is so shy and mousy in the first episode that its hard to believe that she was seduced by Grant High School’s biggest leech, Ricky (Daren Kagasoff). It turns out Ricky has a secret, too, which may explain his predatory nature.

The best-looking girl at the school is head cheerleader Grace (Megan Park), an ever-cheerful devout Christian who is abstaining from sex. When she tells her boyfriend, Jack (Greg Finley), that she wants to wait about 12 years - until after medical school - he wonders whether oral sex is an option.

Grace says it isn’t, so Jack, the star quarterback and also a Christian, may be led astray by the seductive school bad girl Adrian (Francia Raisa).

Amy’s potential true love interest is the nerdish 15-year-old Ben (Kenny Baumann), who desperately wants to lose his virginity.

Also in the cast is former teen movie star Molly Ringwald, who was a sweetheart in 1980s coming-of-age films such as “Pretty in Pink,” “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club.” Now, she’s playing Amy’s mother. Mark Derwin, from ABC’s “One Life to Live,” plays Amy’s father.

Amy’s parents haven’t picked up on their daughter’s blues. They are too worried about Amy’s rebellious 13-year-old sister, Ashley (played by India Eisley, daughter of actress Olivia Hussey).

Grace’s loving parents are a couple of TV veterans, John Schneider (“Dukes of Hazzard” and “Smallville”) and Josie Bissett (“Melrose Place”). Grace’s younger brother, Tom (Luke Zimmerman), has Down syndrome.

It’s too early to tell where Hampton is going with these Christian characters.

There’s one funny football team prayer before a game during which the coach wants the players to ask God for victory, but he keeps asking to not be led into temptation by those sexy cheerleaders in tight sweaters.

Some critics have said the teens in this series seem too consumed by sex. But as one well-informed teen character points out, nearly 47 percent of all high school students have had sex.

That statistic comes from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which also notes that 1 million teenagers in the United States will become pregnant during the next 12 months.

Ninety-five percent of those pregnancies will be unintended. About one-third of them will end in abortion, and one-third will end in miscarriage. One-third of the teens will continue their pregnancy to term and keep the baby.

Not to give away too much here, but plans are to have Amy’s baby arrive after the 10-episode first season, if “American Teenager” is renewed.

Walt Belcher is a staff writer for Media General’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.