You're not too old or too cool for this: If you're not watching ABC Family, you're missing out.
It showcases young talent.
While other networks use 35-year-olds in the place of high school freshmen, ABC Family's series skew younger. Oh, sure, there's still some age inappropriate casting (I love my Pretty Little Liars!), but these shows are largely filled with actors playing their ages. There's also space for talented newcomers: one of Bunheads' standout performers is 17-year-old Julia Goldani Telles, who plays Sasha. While she's an accomplished dancer, this is her first acting role.
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It doesn't dumb anything down.
Honestly, sister series Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game are tough to follow. That's kind of the point. But it's refreshing to see teen series that are this complex and involved. Other shows dumb things down to the point of throwing continuity out the window — the characters flit about from one another as the plot sees fit. But ABC Family series are invested in telling long, drawn-out stories that actually require our full attention.
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It doesn't shy away from heavy themes.
Perhaps more to the point: ABC Family shows take those heavy themes and handle them with frankness and respect. Plenty of other teen dramas have given us teen pregnancy, drug addiction, and abuse, but ABC Family series are especially adept at approaching these issues head-on and not backing down. It's not about sensationalizing so much as normalizing, treating each theme as a real-life issue worthy of examination. Which is what they are.
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It appeals to our retro sensibilities.
Though I'm mostly watching ABC Family for the teen content, I can also appreciate what they're doing with series like Melissa & Joey, whose selling point is giving us '90s icons Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence. ABC Family's programming, while largely directed at teens, is also geared toward twentysomethings — those of us who do remember the '90s and talk about it often, probably to an annoying extent.
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