Playtime's Over

Bunheads partisans were dismayed earlier this month when big premiere numbers for ABC Family's new summer series, Twisted and The Fosters, were said to have placed the renewal hopes of the lower-rated ballet dramedy in jeopardy. At the time, I was concerned too; I've liked Bunheads okay, though I mostly come away from every episode mentally comparing it to Gilmore Girls, the late series from Bunheads creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. And now that we're four episodes into the first season of The Fosters, I have to say...it's definitely the better show.

I KNOW THIS IS BLASPHEMY, because Sherman-Palladino is TV royalty from her work on Gilmore Girls and, before it, Roseanne, whereas The Fosters is executive-produced by Jennifer Lopez, whose TV bona fides are not as solid. There's also the fact that, in terms of its central subject matter, Bunheads doesn't risk overreach: it's about a goofy young woman and her younger, equally goofy ballet students, whereas The Fosters packs in issues of sexuality (the family is led by lesbian partners), youth offenders (one of the family's new foster children comes to them directly from juvie), drug abuse (an early plotline revolved around one kid selling another's Adderall at school), and race, which came up last night at a quinceañera.

[Hold for applause for Lorraine "Shambala Green" Toussaint.]

Since characters of colour are so little featured, the subject of intra-community prejudice and animosity is one I've rarely seen covered in scripted television. An hour-long documentary on OWN this past Sunday, Dark Girls, addressed it, and featured heartbreaking footage of very young African-American girls demonstrating how they've internalized self-hating ideas about what shade of skin colour correlates to beauty. This moment in The Fosters goes even further by showing the dynamic between Dana (Toussaint), mother to Foster family matriarch Lena (Sherri Saum), and the ideas about identity that underpin Dana's attitude toward Lena's adopted children -- two of whom are of Latino descent -- and which racial box they fit in. What makes it even tougher to watch is that, from her first scene in the episode, Dana is very loving toward Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) and Jesus (Jake T. Austin), and warmly welcoming to Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Jude (Hayden Byerly), the family's new (white) additions. But now we know that Dana regards them as disconnected from her in a fundamental way because she feels similarly disconnected from their mother.

This is tough stuff for a show aimed at teenagers to tackle, though it's surrounded by scenes that are more straightforward catnip for kids: a forbidden crush between foster siblings, and a comeuppance for the birthday girl, who finally realizes how shitty and ungrateful she's been to her moms and has a remorseful meltdown at her party -- an experience painfully familiar to any person with parents. But by offering an opening for parents to discuss this complex, touchy subject matter with their kids, The Fosters is part of a trend this summer: shows targeted toward younger viewers taking on adult topics. (And kind of scandalizing me, an adult.)

A couple of episodes ago, it was Switched At Birth. Bay (Vanessa Marano) -- having started a new job at an amusement park on the recommendation of Ty (Blair Redford), a military serviceperson just returned from combat -- meets co-worker Mary Beth (B.K. Cannon). Moments into their first one-on-one conversation, Mary Beth matter-of-factly tells Bay that her brother, who had served with Ty, returned from combat physically unharmed but emotionally unsettled, and that he committed suicide, so, yeah, go ahead and get back to barking for those carnival games, Bay! The reference to Mary Beth's brother's passing comes just months after a depressed kid killed himself on Degrassi -- and in both cases, the acknowledgement that the suicide storyline is potentially touchy given the audience's tender age is the fact that the methods of the characters' suicides isn't spelled out, presumably so that it doesn't appear to be offering, uh, tips. (Degrassi also showed other characters' reactions to the body without ever showing it.)

And it's not just teenagers whose shows are forcing them to confront life's harsh realities: Sesame Street has introduced a Muppet kid, Alex, whose father is incarcerated. The show has always done a good job of framing difficult topics in an age-appropriate way (see also: its online tool kits for families with members deployed in the military), and most of the time, the fact that these topics have to be explained to young children at all is pretty depressing. That said, it's become increasingly common in recent years for telenovelas to dramatize social issues with an eye to shaping public opinion about them, so for this trend to have crossed over into children's programming, and to revolve around ever-edgier topics, really just means parents get to take a shortcut to teaching these lessons to their kids -- and maybe have their own minds changed on the subjects too. At least Sesame Street hasn't tried to use Muppets to explain why Grover doesn't think Cookie Monster's experience of monsterhood is as authentic as his own, or why Oscar the Grouch finally killed himself. (Yet.)