Young Americans (TV series)

Cast and characters

Rodney Scott portrays William "Will" Krudski, a poor but brilliant young man who cheated on the entrance exam to ensure his admission and has a complicated relationship with his father. Mark Famiglietti plays Scout Calhoun, Will's roommate at Rawley Academy, who dates Will's old friend Bella until her stepfather explains his reasons for disapproving. Katherine Moennig appears as Jacqueline "Jake" Pratt, a teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy to get the attention of her absent mother.

Ian Somerhalder plays Hamilton Fleming, a student and the son of the dean, who finds himself confused by his attraction to Jake. Ed Quinn plays Finn, coach of the rowing team and a teacher. Matt Czuchry appears as Sean McGrail, Will's long-time best friend and baseball teammate who eventually becomes Bella's boyfriend. Deborah Hazlett plays Susan Krudski, Will's mother who works at a beauty salon named Glamorama.

Charlie Hunnam portrays Gregor Ryder, a bad-boy student at Rawley Academy. Michelle Monaghan plays Caroline Busse, Will's love interest. Cyndi Johnson appears as Paige Bennett, an old friend of Scout's family. Kathleen Bridget Kelly plays Kate Fleming, Hamilton's mother and the dean's wife.

Gabrielle Christian portrays Grace, Bella's irresponsible sister. Beau Gravitte plays Senator Calhoun, Scout's dad. Glynnis O'Connor appears as Donna Banks, Bella and Grace's mom. Naomi Kline plays Lena, a student visiting Rawley Academy for girls showing a romantic interest in Jake.

Production

Steve Antin got the idea for the show after stopping at a gas station in New England and seeing four teenage girls working as pump jockeys. He found it sweet when one explained that her father owned the station. The pilot was shot in Atlanta in 1999 with a different cast. Jeremy Sisto originally played Finn, but after the pilot, he landed the title role in CBS's miniseries Jesus.

When production moved, secondary roles were swapped out, leaving only the five main actors from the original group. The pilot's soundtrack included songs by Fatboy Slim, New Radicals, and The Flys, but after reshoots, Antin swapped them for tracks like Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's "Over the Rainbow," which were also appearing in ads for Volkswagen's Cabrio convertible and eToys.com. A storyline about Finn having an affair with the dean's wife was cut from the pilot and later added to the third episode.

Filming took place in Havre de Grace, Maryland, where a town square, gas station, and Friendly's restaurant were built at the intersection of Congress Avenue and North Washington Street. Wilmington and Charlotte in North Carolina had been considered as possible locations. The series was meant to debut as a mid-season show in 2000 but was delayed until Coca-Cola agreed to sponsor it. The character Will Krudski was then written into Dawson's Creek to connect the new show with an established WB series.

When Dawson's Creek went on hiatus in summer 2000, Young Americans took over its Wednesday 9 P.M. slot, with repeats airing Fridays at 9 P.M. Coca-Cola paid $6 million to be the primary sponsor, and the show was promoted as "Coca-Cola Presents Young Americans." On the August 22, 2000 episode of The Daily Show, Steve Carell featured the series in the Ad Nauseam segment, calling its first episode an "hour-long commercial" because of the Coca-Cola tie-ins. Some scenes were set in a Friendly's restaurant that was built from an old pizzeria for the production.

Music

The soundtrack features several songs by Nick Drake from his album Pink Moon, including "Pink Moon" (episodes 1.1 and 1.7), "From the Morning" (episode 1.1), "Which Will" (episode 1.3), "Place to Be" (episode 1.7), and "Things Behind the Sun" (episode 1.7). Other songs include The Getaway People's "Six Pacs" (modified) used as the theme song and in episodes 1.1, Blur's "Tender" (episode 1.1), Hans Zimmer's "You're so cool" (episode 1.1), Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's "Over the Rainbow" (episodes 1.1 and 1.8), Crash Poets' "Goodbye" (episode 1.2), Kate Bosworth as Bella Banks performing "The Way You Look Tonight" (episode 1.4), Julius La Rosa's version of the same song (episode 1.4), David Gray's "This Years Love", "Sail Away", and "Please Forgive Me" (episode 1.5), Salt-N-Pepa's "Let's Talk About Sex" (episode 1.5), and Brooke Lundy's "Fernando" (episode 1.8).

The theme song "Six Pacs" by The Getaway People from the album Turnpike Diaries was changed at the request of the producers to remove the original reference to cigarettes in the lyric. Executive producer Joe Voci said in an interview that unlike other teen shows that are angst-driven, this show is about a group of kids who want to do the right things and how they handle obstacles, and that the song presents a mood, tone, and feel that is optimistic and implies a sense of adventure.

Reception

David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun described the series as "Shakespeare Summer Lite, with some gender-bending and woodland trysts to go along with the star-crossed lovers." Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly found that it at least avoids the unearned angst of the summer's other 15-year-olds-in-school show, Fox's hapless Opposite Sex. Harvard creative writing professor Jane Rosenzweig found that Young Americans "has a breadth of focus that's far more true to life than the so-called reality-based shows like MTV's Real World and CBS's summer hit Survivor."

Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the show presents as though the creator looked at the blueprints of other WB shows and plucked out elements that would give his series the best chance for success with the Gen Y set, calling it admirable from a business standpoint but not very original, and concluding that it is "mindless and clichéd" but still "guilty summer fun." Michele Hewitson of The New Zealand Herald compared the show to the film Dead Poets Society and said it is not often an American television series manages to exceed all expectations of utter awfulness.

Despite being a spin-off of one of the most popular WB shows, Young Americans received low ratings throughout its summer run and was canceled in August 2000. As of September 2010, it ranks 49th among unreleased TV shows on TVShowsOnDVD.