Better Than A Wedgie

Last year, Thursday nights finally got a fresh alternative to TV viewers sick of the antics of their so-called "friends": the WB's Popular. The show added a new twist to the teen-drama format of its network neighbors (Buffy, Dawson's Creek, etc.) and achieved an elevated level of sophistication, camp and surrealism.

The show centers around two female trios vying for high-school popularity: one as social activists and newspaper editors, the other as cheerleaders and beauty queens. Popular, too smart to favor the Greenpeace Girl Scouts, plays against expectations: The leading geek (20-year-old Carly Pope) is often too whiny to garner sympathy, and the main cheerleader (27-year-old Leslie Bibb) is always having second thoughts. The distinctions, then, are refreshingly muddled.

Popular addresses typical WB issues like sexuality, child-parent relations and body image, but tackles them with unusual frankness. In the episode, "Hope in a Jar," body images present a problem not only for the inflatable bra-wearing, obsessively dieting girls, but for the guys as well: One of the male characters faints after wearing a mummy wrap slimmer throughout the episode. In "An Officer and a Gentleman," the boys are sent to a "sensitivity camp" for making lewd comments, but the girls end up there too for objectifying their male counterparts. Still silly, sure, but a bit more savvy.

But even more important, Popular introduces Ally McBeal-esque surrealism to teen drama. In "Hope in a Jar," a magic scale appears in the girls' bathroom making promises to the young woman who loses the most weight. "Two Weddings and A Funeral," highlights the gimmicks shows employ in their season finales, providing a list of marriages, boy groups and natural disasters and checking them off onscreen as they occur.

Popular hasn't exactly made a splash in the Nielsen ratings, but the show has gained a steady and loyal following of about three million viewers-kind of like Party of Five in its first season. If Popular continues its candid portrayal of complex issues and maintains its visual quirkiness, it could gain an even bigger audience in the fall, when it moves to a better Friday-evening time slot. But until then, if you've missed this gang so far, summer is the time to join the Popular crowd.