10 Things I Hate About You: I Hate It
Posted by KAT in 10 Things I Hate About YouJuly 15th, 2009, 12:38 PM
I always like to give a show at least two episodes before coming down with my final judgement. I did it with NYC Prep, and I’ll do it now with 10 Things I Hate About You - the TV version of the popular 1999 movie.
Now, to preface, 10 Things I Hate About You is just about my all-time favorite teen film. It’s sharp, witty, touching, fun to look at, has a great story, and features a not-yet-famous Heath Ledger. Clearly the show has a lot to live up to for me.
And does it? Eh. It seems to me to be another bland teen sitcom, with very, very loose ties to the film. In fact, I’m not entirely sure why they branded the show as an extension of the movie - and 10 years later, at that! - because though the characters are vaguely similar, the details are all off.
It starts with Bianca and Kat moving to Padua - whereas in the film, they’d been there the whole time. TV Bianca is obsessed with popularity, while in the movie, she was a socially-established sophomore. Kat’s got the same feminist vibe - though here, she’s much more angry than she is intelligent. Chastity plays a much larger role on the TV show, as the most popular girl in school/tyrant rather than Bianca’s sidekick, which I’m okay with. Joey, meanwhile, shows up as a sweet-but-dumb male model/football player, rather than an egotistical douche who slept with Kat freshman year. And Patrick? Cute dude, but totally bland, low-impact delivery of his few bad boy lines thus far.
I think it’s actually pretty well cast aside from Kat (it’s got the fabulous Larry Miller as dad!) and the storylines are sort of cute, but ultimately it’s got no sparkle, nothing to keep me interested. I just don’t care.
The verdict? Chuck it from your Tivo subscriptions. Your time would be better spent popping the movie in every Tuesday at 8 p.m.
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