MTV's Awkward pilot: I don't buy it, but I'll watch it

The premise for MTV's Awkward is thus: basically, Jenna Hamilton (Ashley Rickards)—self-professed "invisible girl"—has one bad day. She takes some Aspirin for a headache, and while choking on a pill, Rube Goldberg's the bathroom into an accidental suicide scene. As she had just received an anonymous poison-pen letter, and herself written an angst-riddled blog post, no one believes that the event was unintentional. Oh yeah, she also just lost her Big V at summer camp, to a guy who totally blew her off.

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MTV wants you to watch the Awkward pilot.

This is high-concept, but the accidental suicide is believably done (and funny), and the remainder of the pilot is surprisingly low key, chronicling Jenna's first day of sophomore year and her sudden push into the high school spotlight. Jenna was previously "unpopular" in the vein of Emma Stone in Easy A, also a self-labeled "invisible" girl who accidentally starts a scandalous lie about herself. Both of these roles are played by gorgeous actresses, so that self-evaluation is a bit beyond belief, and the characters are given romantic interests and close friends, so as to appeal to a wider demographic than a genuine high school outcast would. However, though Jenna is perhaps not a protagonist truly deserving the show's title, the Awkward pilot has some nice, realistic high school details—Jenna's very unglamorous Target outfit (though disappointingly giant bedroom and rich house); oddly real-looking extras (and a "full-figured" cheerleader character); a crush who has gross teenage boy habits (but that Jenna justifies to herself as part of his charm); even Jenna's all-American name choice. Stylistically, Awkward is closely reminiscent of Mean Girls, with cutaways to student talking heads and Jenna supplying voiceover narration. The show provides itself with a potential overarching story in the malicious letter Jenna receives—cleverly, its entire contents are not revealed to the viewer, and by this episode's end, Jenna is able to cross off one of the "faults" with which it maligns her. However, one of the other framing devices likely to be used in future episodes—Jenna's blog—is a bit too sappy and Doogie Howser-esque, and will hopefully be phased out, as its structural duties are already fulfilled by the straight narration.

Though Jenna is not the completely "awkward" protagonist she could be, if an MTV high school show is going to rip off any films about so-called loser girls, Mean Girls and Easy A are pretty respectable choices. And at least it's preferable for a teenager to choose to watch something decently-funny and -constructed like Awkward than most of the television aimed at that demographic.