- Network: ABC
- Series Premiere Date: Oct 7, 2004
Critic Reviews
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A sly, sweet look at high school, “Life as We Know It” is so good that you immediately make room on your shelf for the cult-fave DVD because you know this is the kind of show that gets canceled after five episodes.
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Depending on your memories of high school, ABC's new drama... is either one of the most honest or most troubling small-screen depictions of teen angst. [7 Oct 2004]
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The cast is appealing and the freeze-frame camera tricks mostly are inventive instead of intrusive. [7 Oct 2004]
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Despite its almost giddily provocative tone and the hanky-panky tunnel vision of its teenage protagonists, "life as we know it" displays some real promise with refreshing twists of wit, imagination and an offbeat style. [7 Oct 2004]
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Maybe Dino's immature and occasionally unlikable, but I'm ready for a TV teen who isn't a better, more knowing human being than I am.
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Cheeky but likable. [7 Oct 2004]
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It's rare to hate a series so thoroughly in the first five minutes and then have your mind changed (and stunned) by the creative comeback it mounts in the remaining hour. ... In fact, there's enormous potential to this series if the storytelling and writing stay strong.
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A try at a male "My So-Called Life," with a heaping helping of "Dawson's Creek" on top. [7 Oct 2004]
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I was resistant to "life as we know it" at first, but it won me over (or wore me down). What seems prurience for prurience's sake turns out to be a good bit richer, kind of like "My So- Called Sex Life." [7 Oct 2004]
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There are some bumpy spots in the first two episodes, but "Life" is worth sampling. [7 Oct 2004]
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If all teenage boys think about is sex, sex and more sex, then the producers and writers of "life as we know it" have captured the teenage boy perfectly.
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The pilot episode for "life" is really interesting; unfortunately two subsequent episodes are not as commendable. ... The direct address to the camera begins to grate, and the whole show is not different enough from teen shows of the past. [3 Oct 2004]
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This should be -- pardon the expression -- a fertile area for drama. Yet it fails to bear fruit. Instead we get a string of old cliches aimed at an audience young enough that it might not notice they're old cliches. [7 Oct 2004]
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All the actors do well. They can't do good, however, because they're in service of an obnoxious show. The surfaces look inviting in life as we know it, but there isn't a lot of show there.
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Feels like a cross between a Hollywood writing assignment ("Write a version of 'The O.C.' in 80 pages or less, and don't forget to use a carnival as a backdrop like that show did") and a preachy "ABC Afterschool Special: The Next Generation." [7 Oct 2004]
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It makes one of the worst first impressions in TV history. Seldom has a show worked so diligently to make you hate its characters so quickly.
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Problem is, all the supposed 16-year-olds look like they're 25 (actors playing the sexy lead couple are both actually 24). Maybe it could be called Well-Muscled Smarmy Young Adults Try to Talk Dirty. [7 Oct 2004]
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[A] gimmicked-up adolescent soap opera that's faux sensitive, faux funny and, most of the time, even faux faux. [7 Oct 2004]
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