It’s no surprise that new teen and tween shows are being produced by our TV networks this season. After all, the local television audience is dominated by young viewers.
Still, it is a bit disconcerting that many of the new shows look and feel like they’ve come from the same cookie jar or mold. The big challenge is how to tell them and their respective platoons of young starlets apart.
The newest teen drama on local TV, “Growing Up,” focuses on yet another frisky aggrupation of youths backing each other up as they face all sorts of problems and challenges. We caught its first telecast last Sunday, Sept. 4, and saw that it was pretty much “business as usual” for its resident cuties. The rules for TV teen dramaturgy must be writ in stone!
But the pilot episode did have its plus factors. For one, it was refreshing to see that the teenagers in the show were most focused, not on their personal concerns, but on how to help their favorite teacher (played by Maricar Reyes) resolve her spats with her boyfriend.
That was pretty selfless of them, and set a good example for young viewers to follow. All too often, young people today are fixated on themselves, so it’s good to see a drama series that shows them helping others for a change.
We also liked the new series’ relative lack of “congestion.” On some other teen dramas, the focus is not just on the young protagonists but also on their parents, siblings and other friends and relations. If the directors of those shows were brilliant megmen, they could handle those convoluted “syndrome” dramas and their constantly shifting focus with exceptional clarity.
As for the young leads of “Growing Up,” we know that they’re all supposed to be young comers, some with past successes already chalked up, but at least as far as the first episode went, nobody really stood out.
We trust that, as the actors warm up to their roles, a few of them will emerge as genuine potential stars of tomorrow.
The newest young actor, Diego Loyzaga, is the scion of celebrities, so he’s attracted more attention than usual. He’s handsome and has an attractive smile and eyes, but he’s still feeling his way around the performing scene, so he needs to get his act together.
Male starlets in teen dramas have a harder time establishing themselves than their female counterparts. Why so? Because most teen romances aim for a predominantly female viewership, so they have to present actors who “suit” the idealized image that young girls have for their perfect “dreamboat” — namely, really good looking, sometimes a little bit excitingly “dangerous” and even “bastos,” but most of the time safely tractable and “obedient!”
If you analyze all those contrary “druthers,” they end up as a baffling bundle of contradictions — impossible to portray!