To take a story about bullying (at any age) and set it in traditional slapstick sitcom format seems counterintuitive. We shouldn’t be laughing with or at the escapades of teen girls, or grown women, who find their own amusement by making fun of others-- either locking them in bathrooms or mocking their shortcomings to the point they are driven to eat pie by the (literal) handfuls. And yet FOX’ newest comedy, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, wants us to do all of those things and then some. But that is not its greatest failure. Asking the audience to sympathize, and perhaps identify, with the former social outcast moms while the show itself is still beating them down is where its hypocrisy can’t be ignored. In a world of “it gets better” videos, here we are being “treated” to an example that no, sometimes it really does only get worse.
Jaime Pressly and Katie Finneran are the aforementioned former social outcasts who somehow ended up raising “mean girl” daughters (Kristi Lauren and Aisha Dee). But while they once got teased by high school peers for being raised in a super sheltered life that never allowed for any pop culture to infiltrate (Pressly’s Annie) or for being severely overweight (Finneran’s Nikki), now they get teased by former high school peers for those previous perceived shortcomings, as well as by their own kids for being still out of touch. I Hate My Teenage Daughter is a tough sell on that end, mostly because Pressly and Finneran are so likable as actors, and appear to be such young mothers as characters, that the jabs at them and their ability to relate to their children feel that much more forced. And unfair. We wanted to like I Hate My Teenage Daughter a lot more than we actually do for these talented, strong actors, but unfortunately, the show isn’t treating them as strong women, and that’s something we are having trouble getting past.
We're also having trouble getting past the title, though that may be a nit-pick. Both women have "troublesome" teens; both women are front and center in the pilot; both women, on their own, would entice you into tuning in; therefore, the title should be reflect both of them.
Finneran channels her best Joan Cusack to play the former fat girl, now still just as out of touch role in the most plucky way possible, and Pressly can do more with just a biting look than any line of the dated dialogue she is given-- at one point she references Oprah going off the air. We know pilots are shot long before they air and references can therefore be old by the time they make it on-screen, but I Hate My Teenage Daughter was re-shot in parts, and yet care was not paid to update where it needed it most. The pilot episode instead revolves very heavily on the “easy” jokes of being disheveled in appearance, having hapless (and for the most part useless) ex-husbands, and embarrassing the younger generation through public bonding attempts and dance moves. I Hate My Teenage Daughter feels like something you would have seen on television in the late 90s, without a whimsical, intentional sense of nostalgia being infused.
Within the pilot, Annie and Nikki have to face the daughters of whom they seem more afraid than annoyed or disappointed, but still hapless against changing. These girls are unfortunately only worth a blip of a mention because they’re just truly awful caricatures of mean girls at the moment-- bratty, entitled, playing parents against each other, looking down on the disenfranchised in their school, and probably, we’re sure to learn later, slutting it up to boot. As a mature audience, you end up wanting to slap sense into all four of these women instead of nodding along in their plight. Nikki especially doesn’t seem much stronger or more self-assured now than she did in high school, so jokes are at her expense when she literally digs into a pie to eat her feelings, and laughing at them turns the audience into the mean girls, too.
The pilot sets up an interesting rivalry and still-engaged power struggle with Annie and Nikki’s former high school tormentor, now-turned high school principal (Wendi McClendon-Covey), as well as a somewhat nerdy flirtation between Annie and her ex-brother in law (Kevin Rahm), but the focus is so on the differences between mothers and daughters, we can’t muster up too much excitement about these other tiny developments.
I Hate My Teenage Daughter would show potential if they went way edgier. That's what we hoped would have happened when the original pilot was retooled, but alas, no dice. Maybe by episode three? The subject matter seems to scream for it in today’s world of cyber bullying, but right now any realism in the premise has been completely glossed over with theatrics-- not to mention the saccharine sweet family-friendly wrap up at minute twenty-three. It’s a show that begs for single-camera set-up and snarky dialogue but instead is stuck in traditional sitcom past.
I Hate My Teenage Daughter will premiere on FOX on November 30th at 9:30pm. Will you tune in? Sound off in the comments below!
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