Ah, out with the old, in with the new. The television season is dead, long live the next television season. And to prepare for it, I’m going to review new shows as the pilots become available.

Life As We Know It; ABC, Thursday Nights 10:00 pm

There are a couple of things we need to get out of the way. First off, I’m old. Yeah, old. I’m finally leaving the “most prized demographic,” so the networks aren’t going to program for me and aren’t going to much care what I have to say…focus groups and demographics are everything, since they figure I’m too old to change the soda pop I drink. Secondly, I love television, and that includes silly shows like Scrubs, action-packed shows like 24, and even the occasional guilty pleasure like The O.C. I was apparently one of the few who enjoyed last season’s Birds of Prey and Lyon’s Den, while I freely admit I cannot figure out the fascination the American public has with American Idol - I mean, they all sound the same, so what’s to choose from? I am constantly arguing with my peers (and even those younger than I am) that there really is good programming on television nowdays, even quality programming, if you’re willing to look for it. I’ve never complained about either sex or violence in television programming, so long as there’s a point to it (and not just the ol’ Bochco “show-a-butt” nonsense). So old or not, I can rarely be accused of being completely out-of-touch, whether or not my taste matches that of the general public (or in some cases their lack-of-taste, but nevermind that now).

After watching the pilot episode to Life As We Know It, I desperately needed a shower.

Honest to goodness, Fox may have no shame, but even that network would pass on this show for being too tasteless for their network. This show opens with the idea that, “Boys think about sex every fifteen seconds,” and then proceed to prove that the writers apparently think about it constantly. From the tone of the show, the pre-pubescents who penned the pilot typed this script with one hand while panting over the Penthouse letters colunm.

It’s described as a “coming of age” story about three friends; one who is having a beginning-of-life crisis about wanting to be with a big girl (Kelly Osbourne; yes, that Kelly Osbourne), one who has a serious crush on a teacher (Marguerite Moreau), and one who could have any girl in the school but chooses the class virgin (Missi Pergrym). It all goes downhill from there.

The first friend Jonathan, the inept goof who can’t figure out where the body parts are (Chris Lowell), is the only one who emerges from the pilot episode with any kind of “happiness,” which for this show means the possibility of getting lucky under some tree. The second friend Ben (Jon Foster) almost scores with the teacher after seeing her nude with the teacher’s encouragement, only being turned away by some car headlights (can anyone join me for how truly asinine this subplot is - I mean, c’mon, people, anytime an authority figure takes advantage of their position, it is criminal abuse plain and simple), and the third friend Dino (Sean Faris) hatches a machiavellian plot to get the virgin to proposition him, and when she does, he can’t go through with it because he caught his mother boffing his ice hockey coach earlier in the day.

Yep, that about covers this issue’s letter column. I really hope next issue doesn’t have anything in it about a donkey, or we’ll be seeing it here in episode two.

The production values are impressive; I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere near this much blue-screen work in a “straight drama” (term used loosely) before, although that I clearly noticed the effects work implies it wasn’t either as slick or as unimposing as the producers think. The three main characters routinely break the “fourth wall” (someone might want to tell the producers that this isn’t new, clever, or novel, either; George Burns was doing it back in the 1950’s) to tell us how much they are thinking about, desiring, planning to get, desperate for, or trying to live without, sex. While they do that, the backgrounds take on a computerized “bullet-time” look with gimmicky slow motion and shifting focus. Cute once, annoying long-term.

The talents of D.B. Sweeney and Lisa Darr as Dino’s parents are completely wasted here - I’m hoping Mr. Sweeny in particular can get himself out of this show and into something that has maybe a little value. The rest of the cast is competent, and in most cases likable even while being hobbled by the tastelessness of the material and the ineptitude of its handling.

“Coming of age” stories have been around forever (anyone remember Deborah Kerr in Tea and Sympathy?), and even the most ordinary of them has some redemption (”When you talk about this…and you will…be kind…”). But this tasteless mass of junk is really just useless…unless you’re under thirteen, you won’t even find it even tittilating, only disgusting. This show is no threat to either er or Without a Trace. I’m guessing four or five episodes tops before the plug is pulled on this thing - and it will be a mercy killing.

What idiot at ABC thought this dreck was a good idea? (Oh, right…Extreme Makeover…I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here…now I get it.)