The CW’s new teen
drama, Hidden Palms, premiered on May 30th in a cliché-ridden
pilot filled with the typical Hollywood portrayal of teen life. Obscenely rich
kids with no responsibly or parental supervision and unrealistic,
consequence-free lives peppered with promiscuity, drinking, and various devious
behaviors made up the bulk of the show. For those reasons alone the episode
could have been named Worst of the Week, but this particular episode’s
shocking and unexpected depiction of violence sealed the deal.
The first five
minutes of the program (which airs in the 8 p.m. Family Hour) depicts a
15-year-old scholarly young man talking with his intoxicated father. After a
few moments of listening to his father’s ramblings, the young man asks his
father for some privacy so that he can finish his studies. The father stands
up, draws a handgun from his pants and shoots himself through the mouth, the
camera showing the man pulling the trigger and graphically splattering his
brains on the wall. The son simply stares in disbelief at what he has
witnessed.
One year later,
young Johnny Miller has gone to live with his mother and her new husband in Palm
Springs. The viewer learns that over the course of the year Johnny fell deep
into drug and alcohol addition and was sent to rehab. At his new home in Palm
Springs his mother disapproves of his efforts to stay connected to AA. Johnny
finds an AA group that meets at a local church and is assigned a sponsor – who
is a cross-dresser. Later, Johnny walks in on his mother having sex with her new
husband. The viewer learns that Johnny blames her for his father’s death because
she had several affairs during his youth. Teen drinking also plays a major role
in the episode.
It is bad enough
that young viewers are exposed to the destructive and irresponsible behaviors
depicted on Hidden Palms, but the impact that the father’s violent
suicide could have is inexcusable. That the TV networks value ratings over the
minds of their young viewers is shown by the gory shock opening. For this
reason, Hidden Palms deserves our pick for Worst of the Week.
