Hidden Palms

Don't believe the critics who tell you "Hidden Palms" stinks after they watched only the first episode.... This is a seriously involving serious show. A show about something.

A soapy delight of hard bodies and dirty doings.

Hidden Palms goes where other series have gone before and suffers in the comparisons. Veronica Mars has told mysteries with more finesse. Twin Peaks was odder with its eerie atmosphere. Dawson's Creek supplied sophisticated teen dialogue with more verve.

While much of it is silly, corny or clichéd and relies more on easy effects — the power ballad, the overwrought sex scene — than on the subtle explorations of people and place that the pilot seems to promise, the series is, on the whole, highly digestible summer fun.

Remove the sex, sociopathology and possible filicide, and you will still be left with a quite inspiring home design show.

A perfectly serviceable teen drama.

"Hidden Palms" isn't totally odious. After the bad acting in the initial daddy suicide, the show calms down and holds mild interest for its bikini hotness, cool blue pools and unapologetic stupidity.

There's nothing remotely hip or ahead of the trendy zeitgeist curve about "Hidden Palms." But there are some of those agreeable guilty pleasures to be found, like cliffhanger twists at the close of each episode that keep the mystery bubbling.

In January or February, I might not have found room in my own schedule for a combination murder mystery and teen soap. I certainly would have wondered more about setting a show about adolescents among the ancients of Palm Springs. Now I'm just inclined to appreciate the little things.

The big mysteries behind the trees in Hidden Palms are also way more fun than the mud in the murky waters of Dawson's Creek. That's not a lot, but pondering the extent of evil in the bad boy, and the cause of the craziness in the gorgeous girl, not to mention why the dead kid died, is considerably more stimulating than it was years ago to put the TV on mute and gawk when Katie Holmes came on the screen.

Even the dialogue is mediocre, a surprise coming from Williamson.

“Hidden Palms” will never be mistaken for classic-era “O.C.,” not yet, anyway.

To the producers' credit, this storyline advances fairly rapidly; it's just not that engaging or surprising.

"Hidden Palms" would be more engaging and addictive if the acting were more distinctive.

Mostly silly, pretentious, soap opera-style TV with an escapist mentality and the subtlety of an avalanche.

It may be harsh to suggest his "Creek" has run dry, but as a followup exploration of teen anxiety, "Hidden Palms" offers little but scenic and human scenery.

Unfortunately, the smarter-than-thou riffs that may have seemed amusing and fresh back on Dawson's Creek now simply feel dated and rehashed.

Overwritten and underacted (by the kids anyway), it strings out its weekly climactic shockers — some of them truly unnerving — with artery-hardening blobs of moldy adolescent whining.

The show is overly ripe in its writing and spends far too much time exploring the whiny angst of the teens.

"Hidden Palms"... starts out feeling like it could be a guilty pleasure but ends up being something you want to hold face down in a full kiddie pool.