T
he network is looking for seven teenagers to act in the thrilling new drama.
“Ideally we hope to find seven highly overdeveloped 16 year-olds to star as sophomores experiencing high levels of drama,” casting director Bob Hanson told The Flail in a recent interview. “They need to look like 25 year-olds, but we’ll say they’re 16 because that’s believable. Plus we can run the series through their college careers.”
The show is truly looking to be unlike any other teenage drama, with real topics such as puberty, girls discovering their sexuality, teen pregnancies, living with divorced parents and perhaps even topics of race and mental illness, with potentially one African American character and one character with Down’s Syndrome.
The African American character will most likely deal with issues of displacement and isolation due to living in a predominantly white, fictional world. Fortunately, his merit will come through in a surprising twist as he unveils his ability to either dance, sing or rap.
Furthermore, he will most likely date a white girl to show that he is accepting of other ethnicities, the network reported, but also because there won’t be any other minoritized ethnic girls on the show.
“We’re thinking that the Down’s Syndrome character will be a girl who is sweet and innocent, but surprisingly devious and witty,” Hanson said. “She’ll surprise audiences with quick and spitfire commentary that you’d never expect a person with Down’s Syndrome to be able to do. She will probably have a crush on one of the show’s more handsome male stars and he’ll reciprocate the kindness, until she finds out that it will never work because he wants to bump uglies with the girl you’d expect him to like—unexpectedly, that is.”
Moreover, one or more characters will suffer from a one- to two-episode stint of having a drug addiction or eating disorder—because that is the realistic duration and accurate portrayal of such issues.
In the episodes, eating disorders will be portrayed as—and in women’s storylines only—being a call for attention and not a serious mental illness that can span years.
Drug addiction will also be treated by a one-week vacation at a beautiful rehabilitation center where they come back more successful than ever with no signs of previous drug abuse. Hopefully, the show will be able to handle self-harm and identity crises in the same way.
“The show’s characters will have more problems than you can imagine and they will somehow all be connected. It’s looking to be cutting edge, original—nothing you’ve seen before,” Hanson said. “We want to break the mold of classic stereotypes and exhausted, unoriginal themes.”
Indeed, the network also looks to include lesbian cheerleaders, sexually active theatre students and football players who are good at math and don’t always wear letterman jackets.
Perhaps the football player will even be nice to the “ugly” girl.
Moreover, the show wants to add non-exciting segments about the students’ parents’ lives. They are most likely going to be upper-middle class adults who appear to have problems, such as financial issues and not-so-secret affairs, but somehow can still stay in exorbitantly nice houses despite their troubles.
“They’ll fight and they’ll make love and have unexpected children and perhaps even adopt a few,” network director Matthew Miller said. “The adopted children will open up a whole new series of possibilities.”
True to his word, the show has already begun scripting scenes that will tackle the problems of parents with wild histories, such as dads having affairs and moms with drinking problems.
But with said problems and the additional financial issues, the network comforts concerned viewers that the show will never dip below the existential problems of the upper-middle class.
“We want our viewers not to worry,” Miller said. “We will never cover any issues below the very richest Americans—especially not those of people living below the poverty line with real problems.”
The show is expected to air early 2016.