10 Things I Hate About You is a show that teeters on the precipice of being really funny, but doesn't quite make it. Lindsey Shaw, who plays the main character Kat, is fantastic in the part, playing an unapologetically smart and politically-minded teen, who tries hard not to care about the popularity contests of high school. In contrast, her sister Bianca (Meaghan Jette Martin) is obsessed with becoming popular.
The problem is their paranoid father (Larry Miller) won't let Bianca date until Kat does. And Kat has no intention of dating. Until she meets the "mysterious" Patrick Verona (Ethan Peck, grandson of Gregory Peck). In the movie, a geek with a crush on Bianca pays Verona to date Kat, so he can date Bianca, but that hasn't happened yet. The show doesn't try to copy the plot lines and characters of the movie, and I think the show is the better for it.
This show has a lot of things going for it: Lindsey Shaw was a pleasant surprise (since I wasn't all that impressed with her on Aliens in America), and the chemistry between her and Ethan Peck is great. And every episode is full of great quips.
It's a little surreal, which I think works both for and against it. Meaghan Jette Martin and Dana Davis, who plays the mean girl villain of the piece, both go at their roles with over-the-top panache that makes the show fun to watch. But the over-the-topness is really annoying in the case of the nerds, especially Michael (Kyle Kaplan). They're a little too pathetic and clueless for my taste.
But overall, this is a really good sitcom. Lindsey Shaw is a star. A-
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