10 Things I’d Hate About Seeing 10 Things I Hate About You Off The Air

Jessica SticklesApr 23rd, 2010, 7:55 am

6. The Supporting Adult Cast – Between the principal, the English teacher, the school security guard and the range of adult guests, there’s a smartly written adult cast that gives a great deal of color to the show. Just check on a series of dialogue in Episode 4 where the principal talks about “not poking a monkey in his cage.”

7. The Dialogue – The show trusts a teen audience and a typical ABC family audience to get subtle jokes and well-crafted one liners hidden beneath the typical high school banter of dances, cheerleaders and dates. One example is a conversation between father and daughter that starts with Kat Stratford (Shaw) saying, “We’re the only major world power that doesn’t have universal health care” with her father (Miller) replying “I’m sorry. Are you talking to me or the Democrats in your head?” If anything, you have to admire the act of sneaking something like that into a show about teenagers.

8. The Classic “I Hope They Get Together” Couple – Every series has one. From Moonlighting to The Wonder Years to Scrubs to The Office to Glee, shows have the couple you root for and love to watch battle until they get together somewhere down the line. It’s a staple of television. While carried over from the 1999 film, the relationship between Kat (Shaw) and Patrick (Peck) belongs in the same league that the “Hope I Get Together” couples from the shows above do.

9. The Potential – Creating a series with relationships and characters that you can invest time in is rare. There’s certainly room for more complexity, more relationships, and more imagination in a second season – but I’d just prefer that imagination to make it to the screen.

And finally..

10. It’s Just, well, Fun – To elaborate on the previously mentioned backstory of how my fanship came to be, I did say “This is different” out loud but then switched to watching some awful show where people compete in a water obstacle course. I dismissed 10 Things… as being a “another teen show.” But then I came back to it, watched it on Hulu and just like that, I was addicted. And sure, my admiration was based on the elements listed above, but truthfully my fanship is based on the fact that the show is just plain fun. It’s silly. It’s funny. It’s just fun – which yes, I’ll admit sounds like your mom describing a hat to you, but genuinely it’s a show that tries to not take itself too seriously but does want to entertain with smart, self-aware characters and silly, simple concepts – basically what you look for in your adult sitcoms. It’s not reinventing the wheel – but it’s certainly inventing a really enjoyable wheel. Or as your mom would put it, a really fun wheel.

Jessica Stickles is a writer, actor and comedian based in New York City. She can be seen performing regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York.

10 Things I Hate About You airs Mondays at 8pm (for now). Photo via.