• --
10-Things-I-Hate-About-You_l
A Hate Story: Ethan Peck, who plays brooding hunk Patrick, and Shaw
Vivian Zink/ABC Family

Credits

Start Date: Jul 07, 2009; Genre: Comedy
B-

The wonderfully sour Larry Miller reprises his role as the dad in 10 Things I Hate About You, an ABC Family sitcom adaptation of the 1999 movie. He is forced to utter a cringeworthy line in the premiere: ''Boys want to put a baby in you.''

That's directed at his teen daughters, Kat (Aliens in America's Lindsey Shaw) and Bianca (Camp Rock's Meaghan Martin), but things actually improve a bit after that. While Bianca is the status-conscious, superficial center of the show, Martin makes her kinda sweet, and Shaw is downright excellent as the status-hating, politically aware Kat. ''We're the last superpower and we don't have universal health care,'' fumes Kat. When was the last time you saw a teenager in a sitcom get worked up over universal health care? How can you not root for a character like that, even if you don't agree with her politics?

For the priceless Kat, we can put up with jokes about a certain boy wizard the show refers to as ''Harry Pooper.'' And to balance off the dad's ''baby'' line at the start of the show, it ends with a close-to-funny one, with Bianca telling Kat to change the radio station because ''NPR is giving me menopause.'' B–


Sign up for EW.com's What to Watch Newsletter!

What to watch on TV. Hear what's on tap for the night ahead and get witty, morning after recaps of top shows (sent weekday mornings).
  • Print
  • Del.icio.us
  • Google
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • More
 

Add Your Comments

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. You must have javascript enabled to submit a comment.
--
Change/Edit your grade
characters remaining