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Hamilton: "It's so Hardy Boys" Jake: "Yeah, meets Nancy Drew"

'Young Americans': WB's Summer Fling
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 12, 2000; Page C01

To say that a program is bad even by the standards of the WB network is nearly the ultimate insult. The only thing worse would be to say it's bad even by the standards of UPN. Typically, if WB executives detect even a particle of intelligence in a series, they cancel it, sometimes before it gets on the air.

That's what happened with "Young Americans," a show that was originally to debut months ago during the regular season. WB honchos put it in a holding pattern that looked terminal. But then the Coca-Cola Co. showed interest in becoming a major sponsor, and "Young Americans" miraculously bounced back from the dead.

It premieres tonight at 9 on Channel 50, and if parts of the show make one want to retitle it "Young American Jerks," the cast is attractive enough to give it consistent visual appeal and bright enough to override deficiencies in content. The pilot also has sufficient provocative complications to sustain a modicum of interest.

How big, exactly, is a modicum? Well, it's bigger than a soupcon but much smaller than a heap. "Young Americans" is decent enough to make it stand out from standard summer fluff. And that cast really is a whole fleet of dreamboats.

Like all WB shows, "Young Americans" is about and aimed at youth. It's set at Rawley Academy, a rich boys' prep school in New England. Fortunately, there just happens to be a girls' school right across the lake. One of the first rites of the summer session has the girls and boys running toward each other and stripping off their clothes as they do.

Clearly, series creator and executive producer Steven Antin knows how and when to insert a crowd-pleaser. Antin is a Hollywood eclectic, a sometime actor who wrote and starred in his own endearingly peculiar independent film, "Inside Monkey Zetterland." He played Monkey.

In "Young Americans," after the mass disrobing and some splashing in the water, the show's two heroes emerge: a rich looker named Scout Calhoun (Mark Famiglietti) and a working-class "townie" named Will Krudski (Rodney Scott), who got into the pricey school on a scholarship. They become allies after being the victims of mild hazing, kidnapped by older classmates and left in the center of town wearing only their boxer shorts. Imagine their chagrin.

Both Famiglietti and Scott appear to have the faces and personalities to become teen faves, although our culture is so crowded now with teen faves that squeezing in more would seem impossible. Scott looks like a young Rick Schroder; imagine, Schroder's old enough to have a young Rick running around. Similarly charismatic and ultra-telegenic is Kate Bosworth as Bella Banks, easily New England's prettiest gas station employee. Bella's immediately smitten by Scout, and the smiting is mutual.

But late in the show, Bella's father tells Scout a Startling Secret that puts a considerable strain on the relationship.

Rawley Academy, where summer session appears to be the most important part of the school year, is soggy with secrets. A moody young semi-intellectual (Ian Somerhalder) makes pals with freshman Jake Pratt. Now Jake has a whopper of a secret, but this one we don't have to keep, since you'll know what it is the minute you see the character. One rather large hint: Jake is played by Katherine Moennig.

Yes, Jake is passing for a boy, fooling everybody. In fact, one can infer from the dialogue that she has even fooled her parents, which has to be the neatest trick of the week.

Some of the dialogue is laughably cool-cryptic. After Bella impulsively tells Scout she might be falling in love with him, she gasps, "Oh God, I can't believe I just said that," and Scout replies, "No, I love that. That is awesome. I love that you said that." These are people who even when speaking in words of two or three syllables still seem to be speaking in words of one syllable.

In fact they pretty much lead one-syllable lives. Still, they're cuties, and the school setting does allow for little peeps of thought to creep in.

Most boring and loathsome of the characters is a combination teacher--apparently the only teacher at the school--and crew coach named Finn, played by Ed Quinn. We're supposed to find him just the coolest guy ever. In one scene, he discovers yet another secret about a student by eavesdropping on the kid's conversation with a friend. Talk about Big Brother. Instead of the kid's being punished for what he said, the teacher should be fired for spying and using the information against him. But that is decidedly not what happens.

Some scenes in the pilot have been reshot since the original version was shown to critics last winter. That includes a very early scene in which Bella and Scout meet. Since Coca-Cola is picking up the tab, the product placement in the scene is ludicrously conspicuous. What a tacky way to begin the show. But things get better as the premiere goes on, and as the series goes on, who knows? They might even get good.

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