The Secret Life of the American Teenager

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The Secret Life of the American Teenager
Genre	Drama
Format	Teen Drama
Created by	Brenda Hampton
Developed by	Brenda Hampton
Written by	Brenda Hampton Jeffrey Rodgers Caroline Kepnes Jeff Olsen Chris Olsen Elaine Arata
Directed by	Ron Underwood Anson Williams Jason Priestley John Schneider Gail Bradley Lindsley Parsons III Keith Truesdell
Starring	Shailene Woodley Daren Kagasoff Kenny Baumann Mark Derwin India Eisley Greg Finley II Megan Park Francia Raisa Molly Ringwald Jorge Pallo (Season 1)
Opening theme	"Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" by Molly Ringwald
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	35 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Brenda Hampton
Running time	Aprox. 44 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC Family Citytv
Original run	July 1, 2008 – present
Status	Hiatus
Chronology
Related shows	7th Heaven, Juno
External links
Official website

The Secret Life of the American Teenager (often shortened to Secret Life) is a television series created by Brenda Hampton. It first premiered on ABC Family on July 1, 2008. The show was renewed for a second season consisting of 24 episodes on February 9, 2009,^[1] which began airing on June 22, 2009.^[2] The first season focuses on the relationships between families and friends and how they deal with the unexpected teenage pregnancy of character Amy Juergens, who is portrayed by Shailene Woodley. In the second season, Amy Juergens must deal with juggling motherhood and high school, while her family and friends experience relationship challenges of their own. ^[3][4]

The series received generally negative reviews from most mainstream critics when it began broadcasting, but was extremely well received among viewers. The pilot episode broke the record for highest rated debut for ABC Family, which has been broken by the second series premiere, beating Kyle XY, with 2.82 million viewers, and the season one finale brought in 4.50 million viewers, beating the night's Gossip Girl which had almost half its usual number of viewers. The second season premiere earned mostly positive reviews from critics and was praised and extremely well received among viewers. Secret Life opened its second season with the largest audience so far, posting a series high in Total Viewers with 4.68 million viewers and is the No. 1 scripted original premiere of Summer 2009 in Adults 18-34.^[5] The show has also earned the Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer TV Show during its premiere season.^[6][7] It currently airs on Monday at 8/7c on ABC Family in the U.S. and on Citytv in Canada.

Contents 1 Production 1.1 Development 2 Series overview 3 Episodes/U.S. Ratings 3.1 DVD releases 4 Cast and characters 5 Reception 5.1 Awards and nominations 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Production

The Secret Life of the American Teenager was created and executive-produced by Brenda Hampton, creator of the eleven season long show 7th Heaven.^[3] It has a low $1.5 million-an-episode budget, which is $1 million below average for a broadcast network primetime series. Secret Life is number one with the network's key demographic in its debut time slot versus cable television shows.^[3]

Season 1 began with 11 episodes broadcast from July 1, 2008 to September 9, 2008. After a hiatus, 12 first season episodes aired beginning January 5, 2009, despite being marketed as Season 2, for a total of 23 episodes.^[8] The show has also been picked up by Canadian Broadcaster Citytv, which started airing the show in Canada on September 3, 2008 and ended shortly after. Muchmusic (Canadian channel) started to air the first season on November 30, 2009, 2 episodes a night from 6 to 8PM. Season 2 will start to air Monday nights at 7PM on Muchmusic December 7.

Following the success of its first season, ABC Family announced on January 31, 2009, plans to renew Secret Life. ^[9] The official press release was released on February 9 and was added to ABC Family's line up on April 7, 2009.^[10] The show was renewed for a 24 episode second season which began airing on June 22, 2009.^{[1][11][12][13]} Season 2 began with 12 episodes broadcast starting June 22, 2009. Though marketed as the season finale, the mid season finale aired on September 7, 2009, with the second half of the season expecting to return on January 4, 2010^[14].

[edit] Development

Hampton first pitched the show more than a decade ago to FOX when Susanne Daniels was head of programming, but was eventually passed over. The project followed Daniels to Lifetime but met a similar fate. A frustrated Hampton wrote six scripts on spec and submitted them to other networks, including the CW, which had carried 7th Heaven, the longest running hit in WB/CW history. Finally, she zeroed in on ABC Family because it was playing off the reruns of Heaven and was scouring the community for original scripted hours as part of a new programming initiative.

Despite its controversial center around an unwed, pregnant 15 year old, ABC Family took the leap although Laura Caraccioli-Davis, executive VP of the media buyer Starcom, said advertisers held back from buying time in the show, taking what she called "a wait-and-see attitude." ^[15]. The show began casting as the "Untitled Brenda Hampton Project".^[16] The Secret Life was originally planned to be titled The Sex Life of the American Teenager, but Hampton explained that the biggest problem with the name was that "when you Googled it, you'd call up a bunch of porno sites." ABC Family's parent company Walt Disney would not have approved of that.^[15]

Kate Juergens, executive vice president of original-series programming and development for ABC Family, says of the series, "We're not sugar-coating teenage pregnancy, but dealing with the very real consequences of it."^[15] However, Hampton doesn't see the series becoming too dark. Comparing Secret Life of the American Teenager to 7th Heaven, she said, "It's the same show in that hopefully it's kind of a serious topic with people teen pregnancy but at the same time there's funny things running underneath it and although a lot people never saw the humor in 7th Heaven I thought there were some pretty funny things about it. It certainly wasn't Fat Actress but still I come out of a background in comedy so I hope there's always something fun about the show but there is the serious and dark side with the teen pregnancy."^[17] Larry Novenstern, Executive Vice President of National Electronic Media for Optimedia Intl., calls Secret Life a cross between 7th Heaven and Juno.

Hampton claims she "just never grew up" and finds her own teen voice and inspiration from "somewhere back there in the '60s." ^[17] She therefore takes great pains to try to capture how young people talk. "I like all of our actors, and the younger ones, in particular, have opinions," she says. "They'll come to me and tell me if some of their dialogue doesn't sound right to them." Hampton listens, and will sometimes let them tinker with their lines; however, if Hampton disagrees, the dialogue stays as written. Bob Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for TV and popular culture at Syracuse U., says, "She has the ability to write a show that appears old-fashioned and earnest, without a lick of irony. But if you listen carefully, the show is filled with dialogue that's hip and crisp, as if you're listening to a real cell-phone conversation between two teenagers." ^[15]

To the culture mavens who bring up Juno and Knocked Up, two hit movies about single women grappling with being pregnant, as forerunners of Secret Life, Thompson says the similarities are only superficial. The two movies, she continues, "wrapped themselves in the vestments of irony and comedy to sidestep the difficult issue of an unwanted pregnancy."

ABC Family ends every episode with a public-service announcement delivered by Shailene Woodley, generally from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy urging parents and teens to communicate with one another about sex. The January 19th and 26th episodes, which featured a theme of sexual abuse, ended with a PSA delivered by Daren Kagasoff urging abuse victims to call the Boys Town National Hotline. The June 22nd episode ended with each one of the main cast each taking a turn saying the public-service announcement.^[18] The NCOPTUP also published a discussion guide for parents and teens for every episode up to the mid season break of Season 1 and currently writes an advice column on the series' website. The additions make it look as though Hampton is collaborating with the groups on the scripts, which she says is false. "I don't rely on any outside organization," she says. "I make this stuff up myself." Hampton states that she dislikes the messages primarily because "The PSA sounds like an apology for the fact that we're dealing with teenage sex. I don't think we should apologize for that."

But, otherwise, Hampton says ABC Family leaves her alone, giving her more freedom than most of the network's other shows by putting a TV-14 advisory on the episodes. As she puts it: "I can have a character say the words oral sex, but you won't hear her say 'Jesus Christ.' "

[edit] Series overview

Centered around fictional teen Amy Juergens, The Secret Life of the American Teenager explores how Amy's pregnancy affects her, the baby's father, her friends, dog, and her family. The news of her pregnancy puts additional strain on her parents' already rocky marriage, but brings Amy closer with her younger sister Ashley, her new boyfriend, Ben, the father of her baby, Ricky, as well as with other teens at Ulysses S. Grant High School in Valley Glen, California. Amy's world expands as she learns that virtually every teen at Grant High carries a secret or unexpected problem.

[edit] Episodes/U.S. Ratings

	# Eps	Timeslot	Season Premiere - Viewers	Season Finale - Viewers	Viewers (in millions)
Season 1	23	Tuesday 8:00 P.M. (July 1 - September 9, 2008) Monday 8:00 P.M. (January 5 - March 23, 2009)	July 1, 2008 (2.82)[19]	March 23, 2009 (4.50)[7]	3.51
Season 2	24	Monday 8:00 P.M. (June 22, 2009 - TBA)	June 22, 2009 (4.68) [20]	TBA	3.60*

* as of 9/07/09

[edit] DVD releases

Each Secret Life episode is released on DVD in separate volumes. Volume One is sold as Season One, while Volume Two is sold as Season Two. While marketing January 2009's episodes, ABC Family stated new episodes were part of Season 2. However, they quickly responded to the confusion this caused, saying that it was marketed as the second season for production reasons.^{[citation needed]}

Season One

DVD Name	Ep#	Disc#	Region 1	Region 2 (UK)	Region 4	Special Features
Volume 1	11	3	December 30, 2008[21]	TBA	TBA	Deleted Scenes, Cast Interviews, Gag Reel, Episode Commentaries, 7 Featurettes.
Volume 2	12	3	June 16, 2009[22][23]	TBA	TBA	Behind-the-Scenes featurettes with the cast, exclusive music video from Strange Familiar

Season Two

DVD Name	Ep#	Disc#	Region 1	Region 2 (UK)	Region 4	Special Features
Volume 3	12	3	December 22, 2009[24]	TBA	TBA	TBA

[edit] Cast and characters

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• Shailene Woodley portrays Amy Juergens, daughter of George and Anne Juergens, mom of John Jurgens, older sister of Ashley Juergens and Robert Juergens. Before she became pregnant, Amy is described as the nicer, sweeter and more sensible Juergens daughter. She is a sixteen year-old sophomore in high school. She plays the French horn and wants to attend Juilliard. At a summer band camp, Amy has a one night stand with Ricky Underwood, which resulted in her pregnancy. After returning to school, Amy meets Ben Boykewich and they begin dating.
• Molly Ringwald portrays Anne Juergens, the mother of Amy, Ashley, and Robert Juergens and the estranged wife of George Juergens. After discovering George was cheating on her with Adrian's mother, Cindy Lee, Anne separated from him and filed for divorce. She is supportive of Amy, but feels Amy needs to understand the responsibility of teen parenthood and should not rely on her parents to raise her baby for her. Due to her impending divorce, Anne took a job in architect office and has begun dating her boss, architect David Johnson and later becomes engaged. In the premiere of the second season, it is revealed that she is pregnant. Though she believes it is her boyfriend's, due to her husband's vasectomy, it is revealed that he lied about having the surgery.

• Mark Derwin portrays George Juergens, the father of Amy, Ashley, and Robert Juergens and estranged husband of Anne Juergens. He owns a furniture store. He was previously married to Kathleen Bowman, Grace's mother, before marrying Anne. He also had a brief affair with Adrian's mother, Cindy Lee, which led to Anne filing for divorce. George regrets his affair, realizes he is in love with Anne, and desires to reunite his family. He lived in his garage until the season one finale when he and Ashley moved next door. When baby Robbie was born, George was happy he finally had a son but he looked hard at the baby and said "whose boy are you?" meaning he was questioning whether the baby was his or Anne's ex-boyfriend David's baby.

• India Eisley plays Ashley Juergens, Amy's 14-year-old sister. Ashley is sarcastic, dresses in a vintage style, cares little about what others think of her, has no friends, and is a bit of a know-it-all. Ashley speaks in a monotone. She is the first member of the Juergens family to learn of Amy's pregnancy and has consistently supported her sister. She is the one who convinces Amy to keep the baby. Ashley is eventually given the privilege of naming her newborn nephew, Amy and Ricky's son; she decides on the name John. She appears to be interested in two boys: Henry, one of Ben's best friends, and Thomas, a home schooled boy whom she met at a bus stop. Later on, Ashley moves out of her home with her father. Upon seeing her sister go through childbirth, Ashley vows to delay having sex.

• Kenny Baumann portrays Benjamin "Ben" Boykewich, a kind-hearted 16 year-old sophomore who plays the cymbals in the school band. He is also the boyfriend of Amy. He is very devoted to her and completely fixated on her. Ben is the heir of a wealthy meat company owned by his father, who is known as The Sausage King. He plans to marry Amy and use his fortune to raise the baby with her. His father forces him to get a job in the family butcher shop rather than take for granted his father's wealth to aid Amy and her baby. He despises and even admits to being jealous of Ricky at first, but the two end up starting a friendship after agreeing to work together to help support Amy in raising the baby. Ben plans on going to Bologna, Italy, which is supposedly known for its sex, for the summer and begrudgingly asks Amy to come too. She ends up being unable to come along.

• Daren Kagasoff portrays Richard "Ricky" Underwood, a seventeen year-old junior with a troubled past and emotional issues resulting in promiscuity and a reputation as the school "bad boy". He is the son of Bob Underwood, a domestic abuser, child molester, and drug addict, and a drug addict mother who still lives on the streets. He is in therapy throughout the show, but does not respond very enthusiastically. Ricky lived with his foster parents, Margaret and Dr. Shakur, but moved out to an apartment above the butcher shop he works at offered to him by Ben's father Leo Boykewich. He is also the father of Amy's baby, John Juergens.
  

  

  The main cast of Secret Life. From left to right: Jack, Grace, Ricky, Amy, Ben, Adrian.
• Francia Raisa portrays Adrian Lee, a sixteen year old majorette with a reputation for being easy because she enjoys casual sex and also because Adrian had oral sex with Jack, Grace's boyfriend, to make Ricky jealous. This broke up Jack and Grace, and fueled her jealousy of Grace's later relationship with Ricky. However, the girls have since formed a close friendship. Secretly, Adrian is also an excellent student. Adrian's mother is a flight attendant who often is away from home because of her job or a man. Adrian's father was absent from Adrian's childhood, though after she found her father he has made an effort to reconnect with her. Her broken background has made Adrian emotional, hidden under her tough exterior. She enjoys feeling loved, and so continues her on-off casual relationship with Ricky, though he constantly pursues other girls. When her stepbrother Max pursued a true relationship with her instead of using her for sex, Adrian quickly fell in love, unused to feeling appreciated for her personality. Ultimately, though, Adrian realizes that she is not really in love with her step- brother even though he has fallen in love with her. Grace helps Adrian to behave more "like a lady," even trying to help her become a virgin again by "reclaiming her virginity."

• Megan Park portrays Grace Kathleen Bowman, a perky and sweet sixteen year old sophomore. Grace is Grant High's head cheerleader and a devoted Christian. Grace's father is Marshall Bowman, a doctor whose career she hopes to emulate. Her mother is Kathleen Bowman, George Juergens' ex-wife. She has an adopted brother, Tom, who has Down's Syndrome. Grace has a loving, respectful, and open relationship with her family, but has grown from following their rules and advice to making her own decisions about matters such as boys and sex. Grace dated Jack, but broke up with him when he cheated on her with Adrian. Grace forgave both Adrian and Jack, and forms a friendship with Adrian. She also dated Jack again behind her parents' backs, but broke up with him for Ricky. Ricky ended their relationship to protect her from his abusive father. Once Bob Underwood returned to prison, Grace tried to resume their relationship, but stops after learning Ricky had been having an affair with Adrian. Grace and Adrian's enmity climaxed in a fight in a school hallway, but the two forgave each other and continued their friendship. In the first season finale, Grace and Jack resume their relationship, and in the second season opener, they have sex for the first time. After having sex Grace learns of her father's death in a plane crash and blames her sin, which was directly disobeying her father, she blames herself for her father's death. She takes a while to recover from this idea and pledges to wait to have sex again until marriage.

• Greg Finley II portrays Jack Pappas, a seventeen-year-old junior on the football team. Jack is the stepson of a minister. The summer before his sophomore year, Jack began a relationship with Grace, partially in an effort to keep her well-to-do family at his stepfather's church. He quickly falls for Grace and after their first date asks her for a closed, committed relationship. However, Jack is distraught when Grace informs him she wants to wait until after marriage and medical school for sex. Fretful, Jack has oral sex with Adrian for which Grace breaks up with him. Jack regrets the end of their relationship and projected serious efforts into trying to win back Grace. However, Grace began to date Ricky instead. Unsure of how he feels about sex and waiting until marriage, Jack tries to keep his mind off it by doing good deeds. He sees a way to do this by claiming that he made the fake IDs used for Amy and Ben's wedding, although he really didn't. Jack is assigned to do community service as his punishment, and begins mentoring an inner-city teenage boy named Duncan. Jack had a brief fling with Duncan's older sister Shawna, four years older than Jack, but Shawna tells Jack that she has a boyfriend and was just trying to have fun. However, Shawna later reveals that she lied about having a boyfriend. She really thinks Jack is just too young for her and should be around other high school kids. He rekindles his relationship with Grace at the end of season one.

• Jorge Pallo plays Marc Molina, the new guidance counselor at Ulysses Grant High School. At the beginning of the season, Grant High students, particularly Ben, Adrian, and Jack, sought counseling of every kind from Molina. However, as events such as Amy's pregnancy and Adrian's relationship with her stepbrother unravel, he starts to restrict himself to solely academic counseling to avoid becoming entangled in inappropriate affairs. Molina recently married Virginia, his jealous girlfriend (played by Constance Marie), although he believes she is the wrong person for him. His wife, Virginia Molina, is now pregnant with their first child, which was revealed when she showed up at Amy's baby shower.

[edit] Reception

Secret Life has received a score of 47 out of 100 from review aggregator Metacritic.^[25] The New York Post praised the series for having a set of characters that are "...real and come from families of all stripes — from intact to single-parent households to one boy in foster care..."^[26]. However, most mainstream critics haven't embraced the show, indicting it as a TV-series version of an after school special, "filled with didactic messages and a lotta wooden acting," in the words of Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly.^[15] The New York Times claimed that "The Secret Life of the American Teenager” must surely be the collective effort of an anti-pregnancy cabal. [...] ABC Family means well but could not have done worse. “Secret Life” doesn’t take the fun out of teenage pregnancy, it takes the fun out of television" and calls the show a "Prime-Time Cautionary Tale".^[27] Variety Magazine reports that "ABC Family's latest original drama wants to be a slow-motion version of "Juno" but settles for being an obvious, stereotype-laden teen soap [...] based on first impressions, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" should probably stay a secret."^[28]

Brenda Hampton doesn't mind the poor reviews, saying, "I'd rather get good ratings and bad reviews than bad ratings and good reviews".^[15] Despite its lackluster critical reviews,^[29] The Secret Life received the highest premiere viewership ratings ever for an ABC Family original program. The pilot episode brought in 2.82 million viewers and a 0.9/3 share in the 18-49 year old demographic. The Secret Life also scored high in the female demographic, registering a 6.5/24 among female teenagers and a 3.1/11 among 12-34 year old females. ^[30]

The Secret Life mid-season finale episode of season one defeated the first hour of the much-publicized series premiere of 90210 on The CW in viewers 12-34 and females 12-34, beating 90210 in total viewers and all their key demographics, and bringing in some of the best ratings of the season for the The Secret Life.^[31][32] The season one finale brought in 4.50 million viewers and was the highest rated telecast on March 23, 2009 in viewers aged 12–34 and the number one scripted telecast that night. The episode also beat 90210, which had 2.20 million viewers, more than half the usual number. ^[7]

On Monday, June 22, 2009, Secret Life opened its second season with the largest audience so far, posting a series high in Total Viewers with 4.68 million viewers, and second-best numbers ever in Adults 18-34 with 1.4 million viewers, behind season one's mid-season finale, Adults 18-49 with 2.1 million viewers and Viewers 12-34 with 2.9 million viewers. In June 2009, Secret Life ranked as cable’s No. 1 scripted telecast in Females 12-34, and the No. 1 scripted series telecast in Viewers 12-34 and Female Teens. Additionally, Secret Life stood as ad-supported cable’s No. 1 telecast this month in Female Teens. Impressively, the season debut became cable’s No. 1 scripted series premiere of the 2008/2009 season to date in Women 18-34, Women 18-49 and Viewers 12-34, and the No. 1 scripted original premiere of Summer 2009 so far in Adults 18-34.^[33]

Secret Life’s second season debut now stands as cable’s No. 1 scripted original series/season premiere this summer in Adults ages 18–34 and across core female 18-34, 18-49 and 12-34 demos, ahead of such high profile series as USA’s Royal Pains and Burn Notice and TNT’s The Closer.^[34]

Some critics praised the new developments of the show, saying they could be "interesting material to build on." Jean Bently of EW Popwatch says that now that the whole "teen going through a pregnancy" plot has played out and the "frustrated young mother" thing is going on, we have room to explore some other topics. She remained hopeful that the writers won't just turn these new problems into issues of the week, instead allowing time for the characters to grieve Marshall's death, deal with Ann's accidental pregnancy, and explore the more emotionally complex aspects of teenage sex.^[35]

Regarding to The Secret Life's advertising, Laura Caraccioli-Davis, executive VP of the media buyer Starcom, says, "Nielsen numbers will do the talking in the advertising community, which has a deep respect for success."

[edit] Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Recipient(s)	Result
2008	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Summer TV Show	The Secret Life of the American Teenager	Won
2009	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Show Drama	The Secret Life of the American Teenager	Nominated
		Choice TV Breakout Show	The Secret Life of the American Teenager	Nominated
		Choice Summer TV	The Secret Life of the American Teenager	Nominated
		Choice TV Actor Drama	Kenny Baumann	Nominated
		Choice TV Actress Drama	Shailene Woodley	Nominated
		Choice TV Breakout Star Male	Daren Kagasoff	Nominated
		Choice TV Parental Unit	Molly Ringwald and Mark Derwin	Nominated
		Choice Summer TV Star Female	Shailene Woodley	Nominated
		Choice Summer TV Star Male	Daren Kagasoff	Won
		Choice Summer TV Star Male	Kenny Baumann	Nominated
	Gracie Allen Award	Outstanding Drama	The Secret Life of the American Teenager	Won
2010	People's Choice Awards	Favourite TV Obsession	The Secret Life of the American Teenager	Nominated

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website
• The Secret Life of the American Teenager at the Internet Movie Database
• The Secret Life of the American Teenager at TV.com
• Villarreal, Yvonne (January 3, 2009). "Secret Life of the American Teenager explores teen pregnancy". The Los Angeles Times. LATimes.com. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-teenpregnancy3-2009jan03,0,94538.story. Retrieved January 11, 2009. 

v • d • e The Secret Life of the American Teenager Episode list • Characters Seasons: Season 1 • Season 2 Starring: Shailene Woodley  • Molly Ringwald  • Kenny Baumann  • Mark Derwin  • Daren Kagasoff  • Francia Raisa Megan Park  • India Eisley  • Greg Finley II  • Renee Olstead  • Camille Winbush  • Jorge Pallo

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