Awkward. (TV series)

Awkward. (TV series)
Genre	Teen drama Comedy
Developed by	looren Iungerich
Starring	Ashley Rickards Beau Mirchoff Nikki DeLoach Brett Davern Molly Tarlov Jillian Rose Reed Desi Lydic
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	12 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Lauren Iungerich
Producer(s)	Robert West Andrew Veeder Meredith Philpott Dave Neglia
Location(s)	Los Angeles, California
Running time	22 minutes
Production company(s)	MTV/Remote Productions Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment Chop House Edit Direct Tools & Fasteners Jeff Olan Casting Mosquito Productions
Distributor	MTV
Broadcast
Original channel	MTV
Original run	July 19, 2011 (2011-07-19) – present
External links
Website

Awkward. is an American comedy-drama series which premiered on July 19, 2011 on MTV.^[1] The show revolves around the life of 16-year-old Jenna Hamilton (Ashley Rickards), who is struggling with her identity, especially after an accident is misconstrued as a suicide attempt.^[2]

The show is based on the high school, Palos Verdes High School, in Southern California. MTV renewed the series for a second season in 2012.^[3]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 2.1 Main cast 2.2 Recurring cast 3 Reception 4 DVD release 5 References 6 External links

Plot

The series is based around social outcast Jenna Hamilton who, following an accident that rumors misconstrue as a suicide attempt, starts being noticed by all the students at her school. By making changes and embracing her misfortune, she becomes well-known by her peers. While dealing with her love life and her relationships with other peers she still has to manage the daily drama that comes along with being a teenager.

Cast

Main cast

• Ashley Rickards as Jenna P. Hamilton, a 16-year-old "invisible" girl in high school, wise beyond her years, with an irreverent, optimistic outlook on life, she just wants to fit in. Things go from bad to worse when she gets a mysterious "care-frontation" letter in which Jenna's reaction leads to a misunderstanding of epic proportions causing everyone to believe that Jenna's accident was a failed suicide attempt. She loses her virginity to Matty, but he doesn't want to take their relationship public, which causes complications in their relationship. Jenna is best friends with Tamara and Ming. Jenna is the nemesis of Sadie Saxton. Later in the season she begins a relationship with Jake Rosati.

• Beau Mirchoff as Matty McKibben, he is the main love interest of Jenna and is the best friend to Jake Rosati. He isn't the typical popular jock and has complications of his own and tends to keep quiet about his family life and his relationship with Jenna. He and Jenna had sex at the end of summer camp in a supply closet, but he doesn't want to let anybody know how he feels about it, or what he did with her. Matty has shown to be very self-conscious and to have true feelings for Jenna, although at times he does not show it. At first he tells Jenna that he doesn't think he's ready for a relationship, but eventually confesses that he wants to be more than friends with her and as the season progresses he begins a short-lived relationship with Jenna.

• Nikki DeLoach as Lacey Hamilton, Jenna's mother, who is clueless about raising a child. A superficial plastic surgery fanatic, she had Jenna when she was a teenager and gave up on her dreams of going to college, using the funds to get breast implants instead. In the season finale, Jenna finds out that she probably wrote the "care-frontation" letter.

• Brett Davern as Jake Rosati, who is class president. He is popular, smart, and outgoing. Jake is best friends with Matty and started off dating Lissa in the beginning of Season One, but eventually broke up with her due to his feelings for Jenna and the way Lissa and Sadie treat him. Unlike Matty, who thinks with the team, Jake thinks for himself. He leads, rather than follows, and is a sensitive guy with a heart of gold. Jake and Jenna grow closer, leading him to develop a crush on her. At first Jenna does not reciprocate these feelings, but she eventually realizes that he is kind, honest, and thoughtful towards her. He doesn't mind being seen in public with Jenna, unlike Matty, and he doesn't care about what other people think of him. In the Season One finale, Jake and Jenna become a couple at the Winter Formal.

• Molly Tarlov as Sadie Saxton, Jenna's nemesis. Sadie becomes the most popular girl at school thanks to her parents buying her influence, yet ironically is the one with the biggest weight issues of the "popular kids". Despite Sadie's popularity and power, Jenna senses that Sadie feels she never measures up. Sadie makes excuses for her bad behavior because she feels entitled; she thinks the world owes her for having to suffer a fat gene, that she has everything except the perfect body. She also has a secret crush on Matty which is mainly the reason why she hates Jenna.

• Jillian Rose Reed as Tamara, Jenna's best friend. She is always there to pick Jenna up and lie to her when things get really bad, their friendship has a few difficulties throughout the season but they patch things up. Tamara wants to be noticed and popular and tries really hard to impress others including her crush Ricky Schwartz.

• Desi Lydic as Valerie Marks. One of the school counselors, she clearly has her own problems as she tries too hard to be like the teenagers she is there to help. She's a lonely person who feels her gift in life is helping people. She crosses boundaries and acts inappropriately around students; when Valerie is assigned to talk to Jenna once a week, their relationship becomes increasingly unprofessional as Valerie comes to think of Jenna as her best friend. On Jenna's sixteenth birthday, as a present she gives her the movie Sixteen Candles and also quotes the famous movie lines from the film.

Recurring cast

• Jessica Lu as Ming Huang, Jenna's other best friend. She is portrayed as a down-to-earth indie-style teenager with a strict Chinese mother. Ming gets mad at Jenna for telling Tamara secrets instead of telling her and because of that she feels left out, but still remains supportive of Jenna.

• Greer Grammer as Lissa, Jake's ex-girlfriend. She is abstinent but told Jake he could have anal sex with her because that didn't count. She is quite ditzy and also best friends with Sadie. At first she doesn't like Jenna, because she begins to notice that Jake seems to prefer Jenna's company to her own. Later she realizes Sadie destroyed her relationship with Jake and goes against her.

• Mike Faiola as Kevin Hamilton, Jenna's father. He is shown as being the more responsible parent as opposed to his wife and to be caring and supportive to Jenna through rough times.

• Barret Swatek as 'Aunt' Ally, Lacey's best friend who is a wild party girl. She has always referred to Jenna as Lil Bitch.

• Jillian Murray as Olivia/Jenna Plus, Introduced as the girl Jenna thinks to be Matty's girlfriend after he told her he wasn't ready to be in a relationship. But later on she finds out that she is in fact the girlfriend of Matty's brother.

Reception

Awkward. mostly received positive reviews.^[4] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the TV series received an average score of 74, based on 13 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".^[4] Entertainment Weekly wrote Jenna "navigates the sharky waters of high school, friends, mean cheerleaders, and cute boys with a snarky voice-over that makes her--and Awkward.--easy to fall in love with."^[5] The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz explained Awkward is a "series about a high-school girl that's neither maudlin nor alarming nor conceived with intent to preach or to shock. It's further distinguished by its focus on entirely recognizable teenage pains, as endured by an entirely recognizable teenager, Jenna (Ashley Rickards). Its other distinction: strong echoes of an older kind of storytelling, the sort whose characters grow and acquire depth. This is a lot to expect these days from TV writing of any kind, much less a series about teenagers—it's relief enough when it's not about vampires."^[6] Hank Stuever of The Washington Post praised Ashley Rickards' performance by explaining "Following the well-trod path of Molly Ringwald’s “Sixteen Candles” and Claire Danes’s “My So-Called Life”, she effortlessly manages to elevate the unfresh premise of MTV’s new Tuesday night comedy series, “Awkward,” to something that is tawdry yet honest. It’s even funny, which is a pleasant surprise from MTV, the maker of so many lame teen comedies that I’ve lost count."^[7] David Hinckley of the Daily News gave the show a four stars rating out of five and wrote "Awkward is very good". He explained "For all the times we've seen the high school outcast who feels alternately ignored and humiliated by her peer group, she has rarely been played better than Ashley Rickards plays Jenna Hamilton. " and went on "If the dramas are exaggerated, Jenna makes the trauma feel legitimate, and her narration gives everything a knowing undertone of humor and self-awareness that keeps the most uncomfortable moments from being painful."^[8] The New York Times called Awkward as "a wry show about longing — for love, certainly, but also for consistency, that great intangible in the ever-morphing world of high school life".^[9] The Huffington Post wrote "Awkward. was the sleeper MTV hit that no one saw coming. (...) Without a doubt, Jenna's witty voice-overs make this high-school dark comedy stand out from a crowd of stereotypical high school prime-time soaps."^[10] The Huffington Post later named Awkward. one of 2011's Best TV Shows.^[11]

Linda Stasi of The New York Post gave the show a three stars rating out of four commenting "aside from the gratuitous sexual stuff, "Awkward" is a really good, funny, fun show". However, Stasi mentioned "this just isn't the kind of thing you'd want to watch with your kids -- nor want your kids to watch." She then compared Ashley Rickards to Juno actress, Ellen Page: "Rickards is a great teen actress of the Ellen Page variety -- the kind of kid whose pretty face and adorable bearing is swamped by her ability to look awkward and offbeat."^[12]

According to The Philadelphia Daily News, "Awkward like Glee deals gently and semicomically with issues of sexuality and bullying but never really draws blood".^[13] Variety's Brian Lowry was less enthusiastic about the show: "While the premise is refreshingly gimmick-free compared with "RJ Berger" or "Teen Wolf", the situations aren't compelling enough to make this much more than a latter-day "Doogie Howser, M.D." with a gender switch."^[5]

John Kubicek of BuddyTV website appreciated that the show's "villain", Sadie, is an overweight cheerleader who is popular only thanks to her parents and is in that way different from the typical perfect skinny girl." He also wrote "Just like Easy A, Mean Girls or other strong, female-centric teen comedies, Awkward has a quick wit and a very distinct vision of the world. It's the perfect blend of comedy and painful teenage awkwardness, and in the end, the title says it all. He concluded "The result is one of the most enjoyable and earnest teen comedies TV has produced".^[14] HitFix's Daniel Fienberg gave the show a B rating commenting "Not only are high school horrors pretty universal, even if the specifics change, but I can find a way to fit "Awkward" into a tradition of hyper-literal high school comedies like "Pretty in Pink" or "Heathers" or "Mean Girls" or "Juno". It's not as good as any of those, but it's not as bad as "Jawbreaker," which is in the same tradition."^[15]

DVD release

Awkward: Season One was released on DVD in Region 1 on November 14, 2011. The two disc set contains all 12 episodes of season one as well as special features including, Webisodes, Behind-the-scenes tours of the set, Wardrobe trailer and Cast interviews.^[16]

References

External links

• Official website
• Awkward. - Polish Official Fansite
• Awkward. at the Internet Movie Database
• Awkward. at TV.com