The Secret Life Of The American Teenager – Season
Two (Disney DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C Episodes: C
The
series that took the female-teen world by storm with Season One, returns for another underwhelming season on DVD as The Secret Life of the American Teenager hits
shelves. The Secret Life of the American Teenager airs (oddly enough) on ABC
Family and is anything but wholesome as it chronicles the life of a young girl
named Amy who unexpectedly gets pregnant after spending a passionate night with
the school jerk Ricky. The school from
the very first episode never feared talking about sex, lies, and everything in
between. Whereas this reviewer is not
the shy type, nor one to think parents should shield their children from the
world, but I don’t really feel comfortable saying this is a series that the
whole family could sit around and watch.
I am almost certain one by one the room would clear out…for multiple
reasons.
Whereas
the First Season served to set up
the premise of a pregnant teen dealing with hardships way before her time; Season Two escalates those problems in
a one step forward, two steps back manner.
As Amy Juergen’s (Shailene Woodley) due date draws near the secret
marriage that she had with Ben Boykewich (Ken Bauman) makes matters even worse
and major drama ensues. Life seems to be
getting even more complicated for Ben and Amy’s relationship as the rest of the
characters on the series have their own issues at hand. Drama, drama, drama. The series is over dramatic, over the top,
and hopefully over soon. Each episode is
more absurd and more dramatic than the last with the story being a goopy,
idiotic version of anything that could be considered a true teen drama series. Sure some of the aspects of the series probably
hit close home for many people, but overall it is a wishy-washy show that
promotes crazy for the sake of crazy and no other reason.
The
picture and the sound on this DVD are on the same level as the previous season,
being adequate but far from perfect. The
picture is presented in a 1.78 X 1 Widescreen that has nice colors that rely
heavily on orange and red tones, a mostly crisp image, and overall solid
detail. There are contrast, color, and
video black issues that need some work; but in the end the image slides by as
adequate. The sound is presented in a
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound that mostly comes from the front as it is a
dialogue heavy series, but does utilize the rear surrounds from time to time
for music and other ambient noises. The
dialogue is crisp and clean throughout.
The
extras include the music video “The Secret Life (You and Me)” performed by The
Strange Familiar, a featurette entitled “Character Secrets: The Cast Reveals
All!” that lets the cast talk up their characters and all the relationships
that run rampant throughout the series, and finally “Cast Close Ups: Visit The
Set as the Cast Dishes in a Series of Personal Videos” in which a series fan
gets to interview this cast of giggling school girls and guys. The extras are pretty useless, but fans of
the series may enjoy watching them once.
I do not
recommend this series as it is overly dramatic for no reason. The story lines are only held together by a
loose fabric of intense and idiotically fabricated relationships with no true
depth or sense of reality.
- Michael P. Dougherty II
