Privileged

Megan Smith (JoAnna Garcia) is a Yale-educated journalism major who was hoping for much more when she had a chance to see Palm Beach cosmetics business magnate Laurel Limoges (Anne Archer). Instead, she is offered a live-in tutoring job for her two spoiled grand-daughters Rose Baker (Lucy Hale) and Sage Baker (Ashley Newbrough).

The girls start off as spoiled, but it's obvious where this is going. Megan is going to teach them lessons, and they're going to grow on her. So any bickering or mean girl act is all simply just on the surface. I think everybody did a good job playing these standard characters. The series lasted only 1 season. It was probably good for 2 but not much more.

Network: CW; Genre: Teen Drama; Content Rating: TV-PG (some language and suggested sex); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 – 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Series (1 season)

Part a star vehicle for the adorable Joanna Garcia ("Reba") and part an adaptation of Zoey Dean's book "How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls", "Privileged" as a bubbly, agreeable even addicting guilty pleasure. The show starts promising and then does all it can to let the air out of all the fun.

Garcia stars as highly-educated and seemingly unemployable college grad Megan who is presented with an opportunity of a lifetime. In exchange for tutoring Ann Archer's spoiled daughters, Sage (Ashley Newbrough) and Rose (Lucy Hale), she gets to live in a gorgeous Malibu mansion, drive a sports car, hang out with her best friend Charlie (Michael Cassidy) and get advice from the mansion's chef Marco (Allan Louis), who serves as the show's all-knowing advice-giver for Megan.

Starting with what I like about "Privileged", the greatness of casting Garcia in the role cannot be underplayed. Her personality and buoyancy floats in and carries the show. Megan is cute and intellectual, but also thick-headed, judgmental and self-absorbed. She is not a good person, but she sure thinks she is. It's a more complex character balance than you'd expect from a show like this. But the rest of the cast doesn't quite stack up. Sage and Rose are the Legally Brunette figures who like their designer labels and boy toys and use those things to craft their own success – and naturally Megan succeeds in making them look a little bit deeper into what they want to be and do with their life. Archer is the usual hardass boss.

If this all sounds familiar to you, it felt that way to me too. "Privileged" can't just be a light guilty pleasure finding humor in girls and their toys in the lap of luxury. It can't just have fun in the sun with Megan, her romance with the neighbor stud Will (Brian Hallisay) who, of course, is in love with her and her BFF Charlie (Michael Cassidy), also in love with her, as I think "Privileged" would have played out best. Instead it settles into the type of relationship angst and familial melodrama you'd find in any old high school series or prime time soap. Megan's's backstabbing sister, her alcoholic father, her absentee mother who returns so Megan can give the "you can't just waltz back into my life and be my mother" speech. Rose and Sage date guys who aren't part of the societal uppercrust. One by one by one these story lines squeeze the fun out of the show, turning it into an empty melodrama where Meg does a lot of wining and crying about how "screwed up" her family is to anyone who will listen – all based on a past we haven't seen and have no point of reference.

Had it had the commitment to go for the guilty pleasure brass ring "Privileged" could have filled a television void for light-weight, glassy-eyed guilty pleasure. Instead it's worse - a drama with the empty head of a guilty pleasure (the last thing I want is a show like this lecturing me about gay marriage). It can't think of any other way to fill the time than with anything but the most familiar family drama clichés and self-aggrandizing comedy that isn't at all funny.

* ½ / 4

"Privileged" is based on the book by Zoey Dean by the name "How to teach filthy rich girls" and though the premise is the same, the characters don't have the same depth. What's alluring about the book is not just Megan's struggles to teach the girls but bond with them. After watching the pilot just days after finishing the book I was let down. I won't spoil the book for those who are thinking of reading it, but the back stories it provides are far more interesting then what the pilot provided us with. Yes, its ultimately a story of the wealthy and their drama... but the book is something more... If you were less then impressed with the series I still recommend the book. Seeing the promos prompted me to read it, and it was one of my favorite reads of the year.

I see a pattern with those short lived CW series. They start out great, with an interesting premise, and a light tone. Then it becomes overly dramatic, with plots straight out of a telenovela. Hellcats had the same issue. As for Privileged, it was a nice girly show you could watch between episodes of Gossip Girl and 90210. With characters that aren't too annoying at first, and the infamous hip music selection to broadcast new hot artists/CDs. It was made out to be a win for the network. Only, like I said, the story strayed too much from the light tone of the first episodes, and became a glorified soap opera, by the end of its only season. It's a shame it never got a second one, though...

The best part about this show are the delicious men.

Sure, the Baker sisters are fairly entertaining albeit inconsistently so, as is Anne Archer in her posh, business Grandma role (she's the senior poster girl for lip gloss). We like Marco (Allan Louis) the in-house gourmet chef for his wit and irony, but Joanna Garcia (Megan) in the lead is just hands down - annoying.

Can she please stop twitching her head every time she says something (which is literally all the time)? Someone else commented on "Privileged" comparing it to "Gilmore Girls". Perhaps I should have read that before I started watching this show. There is no show on this planet more annoying than "Gilmore Girls". Joanna Garcia is not quite as annoying as those Gilmore girls, but she's quickly becoming my pet peeve of this show. Who knows, a few more episodes and she might be running for the gold medal of Most Annoying Protagonist.

So why watch it? Really. Three reasons, plain and simple.

*Charlie (Michael Cassidy) *Jacob (David Giuntoli) *Will (Brian Hallisay)

Yum, yum and yum. I want to marry Charlie.