Young Americans (TV series)

Plot summary

Young Americans is set in the town of New Rawley at a prestigious boarding school, Rawley Academy. Will Krudski, a working class New Englander, earns a scholarship to his hometown's posh boarding school, starting with the summer session, as a means of escaping his abusive father. In a moment of carelessness he confesses to his roommate, Scout, that he cheated on the entrance exam. Their professor, Finn, overhears Will and Scout discussing what to do. Before making a final decision about expelling him, Finn has Will write an essay on who he is.

Throughout the series Will continues to face moral dilemmas as he struggles to find his place at school while not alienating his friends in town. There is also the forbidden love of Scout and Bella, who may have the same father. Jacqueline, in an attempt to see if her mother notices her, enrolls at Rawley Academy and presents herself as Jake. Things get complicated when she develops feelings for Hamilton, the dean's son. Hamilton begins to wonder if he is gay as he realizes he has feelings for Jake. The story lines do not converge until the final two episodes of the show as Bella seeks the truth about her biological father.

Main characters

Notable guest appearances

Production

Steve Antin credits a stop at a New England gas station as the inspiration for the series. He was a little surprised to see four teenage girls working as pump jockeys. "One of them said, 'My dad owns the station.' I just thought this was the sweetest thing I ever saw." The pilot was filmed in Atlanta in 1999. The series was filmed in Havre de Grace, Maryland where a new "town square", gas station and Friendly's restaurant were built for the production of the show at the intersection of Congress Avenue and North Washington Street. Wilmington and Charlotte, both in North Carolina, had been considered possible filming locations for the series.

Sponsorship

Young Americans was originally supposed to be a mid-season show in 2000 but was put on hold until Coca-Cola offered to sponsor the show. The character of Will Krudski was then written into Dawson's Creek to associate Young Americans with one of The WB's established shows. When Dawson's Creek went on hiatus in the summer of 2000, Young Americans occupied its timeslot of Wednesdays at 9 P.M. Repeats were shown at 9 P.M. on Fridays.

The Coca-Cola Company paid $6 million to be the primary sponsor, the show being billed as "Coca-Cola Presents Young Americans". Young Americans was profiled by Steve Carell on the August 22, 2000 episode of The Daily Show in the Ad Nauseam segment due to the Coca-Cola tie ins. Carell constantly referred to "The Beginning" as an "hour-long commercial". Some of the scenes also took place in a Friendly's restaurant, which was built from an old pizzeria for the show.

Coca-Cola products are seen or mentioned in most episodes. The unaired pilot episode does not contain the product placement. Among the changes to the pilot is a scene that was reshot in order to show the characters drinking Coca-Cola.

Promotion

A scene from the pilot, which was heavily promoted prior to the show's premiere, where the characters and other students at Rawley run in slow motion to the school's lake while stripping off their clothes was parodied in another WB show, Grosse Pointe.

Music

Theme song

The theme song "Six Pacs" by The Getaway People from the album Turnpike Diaries was changed at the request of the producers to remove the original reference to cigarettes in the lyric.

Joe Voci, the show's executive producer, said in an interview with VH1.com that "Unlike other teen shows that are angst-driven, ours is about a group of kids who want to do the right things, and how they handle the obstacles they're presented. The song presented a mood, tone and feel that is optimistic and implies a sense of adventure."

Reception

David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun described the series as "Shakespeare Summer Lite, with some gender-bending and woodland trysts to go along with the star-crossed lovers." In comparing the series to another debut Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly found that "it at least avoids the unearned angst of the summer's other 15-year-olds-in-school show, Fox's hapless Opposite Sex". Harvard creative writing professor Jane Rosenzweig found that Young Americans "has a breadth of focus that's far more true to life than the so-called reality-based shows like MTV's Real World and CBS's summer hit Survivor."

Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that the show presents as though the creator "looked at the blueprints of other WB shows and plucked out the elements that would give his series the best chance for success with the Gen Y set." After naming a checklist of elements of the show that are common to many shows on The WB, Owen says that it is admirable from a business standpoint to make a show in such a manner but that it is not very original. Owen concludes by calling Young Americans "mindless and cliched" but still "guilty summer fun." Michele Hewitson of The New Zealand Herald compared the show to the film Dead Poets Society and said that it is not often "an American television series manages to exceed all expectations - of utter awfulness."

Despite being a spin-off of one of the most popular WB shows, Young Americans received low ratings throughout its summer run and was cancelled in August 2000. As of September 2010 Young Americans ranks 49th among unreleased TV shows on TVShowsOnDVD.com.