Life as We Know It: B-

I've been spoiled. All those episodes of Gilmore Girls or Everwood or The O.C. or Once & Again have lulled me into thinking that all groups of teenage friends are eloquent, thougtful, and witty to the nth degree; and, too, all familial units are pierced most frequently not by their continual moral dilemnas, but by their stringent -- poignant -- self-analysis. (Plus, having fallen in love with Roswell, I thought that even teen soaps that weren't a-poppin' with smarts at least had soul, heart.) Life as We Know It's sales pitch (a pitch developed by Gabe Sachs & Jeff Judah based on a book by Melvin Burgess), on the other hand, flew in the face of all of this accrued experience. It was, instead, about a trio of best friends who stuttered and stammered and tripped their way through an extraordinarily hormonally-charged adolescence.

The friends are Dino Whitman (Sean Faris), Ben Connor (Jon Foster, previously of the moody and mature The Door in the Floor), and Jonathan Fields (Chris Lowell, who later perfected the stammering artsy-geek schtick as Piz on the doomed final season of Veronica Mars). And their adolescence is basically the four women they moon over at various times in order to get laid: Jacky (Missy Peregrym), Deborah (Kelly Osbourne...yes, her), Sue (Jessica Lucas), and Ms. Young (Marguerite Moreau)...a teacher at the school the aforementioned six all attend. The boys' horniness is central to many of the show's plots, and sub-, but the narrative tentpoles are mostly cliches: the cheating mom, the student-teacher affair. It's only as Life progresses does some fresh blood circulate into the story's veins.

New as it may be, the blood still feels stale. Because as previously mentioned, Life has none of the verbal intelligence or deep-dish soul of some of the better teenage melodramas. What it has is an attitude at once flukey, layer-deep, and coy; it's perpetually perched on the edge of emotional climax (pun intended), while rarely achieving it. And, looking at the drama from the introspective angle (such an action being especially warranted because Life copies its character asides, it almost seems, from Once & Again...a far better interpersonal drama), its psychic ramifications are best defined as all surface and no substance -- the televisual equivalent of one of Dr. Phil's "morality" lectures.

The cast is fascinating -- Mr. Faris has a sneer in the early episodes that is at once both affected and masking, possessing, a bitter sincerity and pain -- and their chemistry has some nice moments. The same can be said of most of the series, during particular episodes. Each forty-five minute chunk has some good scenes, even occasionally a very good one (Dino's tearful confession to his friends about his mom's infidelity stands out), but there are only a handful of solid episodes -- "Pilot," "Pilot Junior," "A Little Problem," and, ironically, the last two unaired episodes: "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Junk," and "Papa Wheelie."

Seeing Peter Dinklage make a too-cool guest spot as a shrink to help Dino sort out his post-divorce aggression issues is just a sore reminder about how far the show hasn't reached, all it hasn't achieved. In its thirteen episodes, the girls are never more than super-good friends and a series of rotating one-notes; and of the guys, Ben is the most rounded, while Jonathan is so badly-developed it's almost grating. "Papa Wheelie" is the name of a trick, I suppose, but the real trick of it -- produced as it was as Life's final show -- is that in its exploration of some surprising moments (having Jonathan finally stand-up for himself against his best friends' continual teasing; Dino's parents' new relationships) it does the unthinkable: it gives a previously sealed-up, mostly souless show soul. And that satisfies even as it dissipates quickly. Sort of like high school.