The Secret Life of the American Teenager
ABC Family | Release Date: July 1, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
5
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik
Season 1 Review: As entertainment, the pilot is a most impressive work of economic and focused storytelling. Read full review
20
Boston GlobeJoanna Weiss
Season 1 Review: Nothing about it feels original or even especially timely, and it certainly doesn't reveal any great secrets about society. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesMisha Davenport
Season 1 Review: It's a shallow portrait of youth, and I can't see how Hampton and her team of writers will be able to sustain things over the course of the series if this continues to be the focus. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: Woodley's performance lifts a well-meaning, rather brave, but ramshackle show a notch. [8 Aug 2008, p.53]
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: It feels thin, mechanical and confused. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: Shailene Woodley is terrific as the teen in question. Unfortunately, other parts of the show feel so contrived they border on soap opera parody. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: The show, like the old "90210" and "The O.C.," looks to be--from its premiere, at any rate--a top-flight series about a group of high school students, most of whom I liked immediately. Read full review
30
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: The pilot was so uneven that the whole affair nearly veers into "Reefer Madness" territory--the kind of over-the-top cautionary fable that subverts honorable intentions through hysteria or cliche. Despite its pedigree, Teenager doesn't appear to have ever stepped inside a high school, either. Read full review
80
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: Secret Life feels a lot more authentic than many teen dramas. Read full review
60
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: It's far more realistic in scope and situations than "Gossip Girl," but there's such an earnestness and one-dimensionality to the characters that they seem a lot less believable. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond
Season 1 Review: This new ABC Family effort from Brenda Hampton (“7th Heaven”) works feverishly to make an educational institution look like the equivalent of a Nevada brothel but succeeds mostly in transforming high school to high camp. Were these stereotypes any more simplistic, they’d need to come with their own parental warning label. Read full review
30
The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley
Season 1 Review: 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. Read full review
30
TimeJames Poniewozik
Season 1 Review: Campily depicting high school as a den of sluts and predators, Secret achieves the noble goal of making sex thoroughly unsexy. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: A good girl’s surprise pregnancy is a strong premise, but creator Brenda Hampton (7th Heaven) undercuts it by surrounding Amy with an uninspired ensemble of precociously cardboard classmates. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: From the tramp to the Christians, everyone but Amy feels more like a type than a genuine character. Although a degree of shorthand is to be forgiven, these characters are caricatures at best as the series careens all over the place. Read full review
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