Popular

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Television series
German title Popular
Original title Popular
Country of production United States
original language English
Year (s) 1999-2001
length 45 minutes
Episodes 43 in 2 seasons
Theme music Supermodels of Kendall Payne
idea Ryan Murphy
Gina Matthews
music Tom Harriman
First broadcast September 29, 1999 on The WB
German-language
first broadcast		 September 21, 2002 on RTL
occupation

Popular is an American youth series invented by Ryan Murphy and Gina Matthews . Popular ran from 1999 to 2001 on the US television station The WB and was broadcast in Germany from 2002 to 2003 by RTL .

The series is about two girls who exist in two different environments at their school. While Brooke McQueen ( Leslie Bibb ) is a popular cheerleader and embodies the epitome of social success, Sam McPherson ( Carly Pope ) is unpopular. The two worlds collide when their parents get to know each other on a cruise and become engaged.

content

The first season is about how the two girls try to sabotage the relationship between their parents so that they break up. At the end of the first season, Sam finds Brooke's mother and motivates her to come back to town, putting their parents' wedding on hold. With the start of the second season, Brooke and Sam notice how happy their parents were before and want to bring the two back together.

In the second season, the luck of the unpopular group also changes: Brooke leaves the cheerleading group to fully concentrate on school, while Sam becomes more popular. Josh and Lily start dating, Harrison is torn between Brooke and Sam, while Carmen replaces Nicole as the leader of the cheerleading group.

Characters

Brooke McQueen : The popular and popular girl at Kennedy High School. She is beautiful and an A student. Although she seems perfect, Brooke is under pressure and has her problems.

Sam McPherson : Smart and pretty, she's one of the unpopular girls at Kennedy High School. Sam can't stand Brooke, but gets along better with her in the second season of the show. Sam works for the school newspaper and when she really wants something she tries everything to get what she wants.

Harrison John : Belongs to the unpopular group around Sam McPherson. He's been in love with Brooke from childhood, but gradually began to take a liking to Sam. Mary-Cherry always calls him Joe.

Mary Cherry : A somewhat stupid cheerleader for the popular group around Brooke. She is spoiled and rude to people who are not popular. She accepts anything for the things she wants, even if she hurts other people.

Josh Ford : The quarterback on his football team and Brooke's friend. At the beginning of the series, he has a conflict of conscience as he would like to be in a musical theater play while everyone else expects him to only play football. Over the course of the series, he breaks up with Brooke and begins a relationship with Lily Esposito. He's Sugar Daddy's best friend.

Sugar Daddy : The popular group's wannabe gangsta. He's Josh's best friend and he's having weight problems.

Nicole Julian : Probably Satan's daughter. It causes problems everywhere. She is scheming and domineering. Her best friend is Brooke, although even this friendship falls apart over the course of the series. She got so mean and scheming because she was teased in her childhood.

Lily Esposito : A friend of Sam and Harrison. She is a vegetarian and supports animals. At first she is unsure about her sexuality, but then realizes that she is into men and starts a relationship with Josh Ford.

Carmen Ferrera : Carmen also belongs to the unpopular group and would like to be a cheerleader. She would give anything to be part of the popular group and she has a heart of gold. At first she was rejected as a cheerleader due to her weight, but in the course of the series she made it into the team.

background

While the first season of the series was a resounding success for television network The WB, the series' ratings dropped significantly in its second season. The poorer ratings for the second season were due to a shift from Thursday to Friday, a day when most young people go out and invest less time in television. Instead of giving the series another chance and pushing it back to its old slot, the broadcaster ultimately discontinued the series after two seasons. The last episode of the season was not allowed to be shot, which means the series ends with a cliffhanger , which should be resolved in this episode that was not shot.

style

At first glance, Popular looks like a normal youth series. But there is more to the series than meets the eye. The series is characterized by its mix of comedy and drama. Sometimes the humor of the series is quite wacky, sometimes also satirical. In the course of the series, the humor increases more and more.

Trivia

  • Linda Park starred in one episode of the second season , while Anthony Montgomery had a recurring role as Sam McPherson's boyfriend in the second season. Just a few months later, the two, who by the way also had scenes together in Popular , were cast in the sci-fi series Star Trek: Enterprise .
  • In the first season, Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope botched many of the scenes in which Sam and Brooke were supposed to be arguing. Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope had to laugh a lot because they're best friends in real life. They both said it was hard for them to hate each other on camera.
  • Tammy Lynn Michaels , who plays the scheming and intolerant Nicole Julian, is the ex-wife of musician Melissa Etheridge in real life . The ex-couple has twins: a boy and a girl.
  • Kip Pardue was originally cast in the role of Josh Ford in the pilot. After the pilot was successfully presented to the network, it was decided to replace him with Bryce Johnson when it became clear that the pilot would go into series production.
  • Anel Lopez Gorham , who starred in the series Poppy Fresh, is the real-life wife of Christopher Gorham (Harrison John).
  • Leslie Bibb and Bryce Johnson mentioned that series creator Ryan Murphy was always on set when Mary Cherry was in a scene. The reason is simple: he wanted to make sure Leslie Grossman played the role exactly as he envisioned it.
  • The US television station The WB originally promised a third season. So Ryan Murphy wrote the episode Problems and ended it with a cliffhanger that would later be resolved. However, the second part of the episode was never shot and a third season was never ordered.
  • The series won several prizes in its short run:
    • 2000: Teen Choice Award ; Choice Breakout Show
    • 2000: GLAAD Media Award ; Outstanding TV Individual Episode, for the Wild Mess episode
    • 2000: Genesis Awards; New Series, for the episode Under Siege
    • 2000: SHINE Awards; Comedy episode, for the Booty Camp episode
    • 2001: Genesis Awards; Comedy Series, for the episode Joe Loves Mary Cherry
  • 2005 declared Ryan Murphy in a interview why the series only as a short life span was granted: "The series was on the wrong station," he says. “You never got it there. They didn't know what they had there. They didn't know how to promote the series. At the time everything looked the same on the transmitter. And the notes I got [from the broadcaster] were 'Can't you do it a little more like Dawson's Creek'. And I said 'no'. I would have been happy if we had three years. That it was only two years makes me feel a little deprived. ”In the interview he goes on to explain what he would have done with the series if he had only developed it in 2005:“ Darker, ”he said. “I think I would have done a Desperate Housewives thing and there would have been a murder. I would have had the cheerleaders kill people. I would have made it really dark. "

Plans for a third season

A third season of the series was never produced. Still, series creator Ryan Murphy announced what would have happened in season three:

Brooke is no longer blonde, Harrison chose Brooke

Season three would have started the senior year of the Kennedy High School gang. A bandaged Brooke would have been in a coma for four months and would eventually wake up to find that every single bone on her face was broken while walking in front of Nicole's car. When the bandages are removed, Brooke looks exactly the same as before. However, she is now a brunette. Nicole is on trial for attempted murder, and she argues that she only drove drunk because Brooke's father sexually molested her and the only way she could use alcohol to keep the pain out of her mind. Nicole asks Brooke to tell the judge that she ran into the car, which Brooke is doing. It turns out that Harrison chose Brooke and didn't start crying for Sam and Sam at the table, so Brooke couldn't take it anymore and ran away. Nicole makes sure Brooke's father's name is washed clean, but her friendliness is short-lived. She threatens to rule the school. Sam and Brooke try everything to stop them.

Harrisson becomes popular

Brooke and Harrison start dating and he's popular for the first time in his life. In a Beverly Hills, 90210 parody, he starts with different girls and breaks Brooke's heart. Eventually Josh moves in with him and his mother. Josh and Lily were doing fine until she discovered his cockfighting gambling addiction. Also, series creator Ryan Murphy and series actress Carly Pope had talked about making Sam a lesbian and an angry alcoholic.

B.Ho killed by girl gang

Meanwhile, Mary Cherry is said to live in the old area of ​​her twin sister B.Ho, but ends up in a dog pen, which she gives up for adoption. B.Ho joins Nicole and Unique Jone (a new character, an African-American schoolgirl) and they attack a car with firearms until B.Ho is shot by a gang of girls. A grieving Cherry Cherry arrives at the dog kennel and saves Mary Cherry just in time from an anesthetic. She takes Mary to B. Ho's funeral, which parodies the whole "South Central, Shot Too Early" thing. Mary Cherry joins Brooke and Sam's group. Cherry Cherry starts teaching the Madonna 101 class at school (Murphy wanted Madonna to be a guest star). Unique, on the other hand, becomes so psychopathic that she scares even Nicole.

Brooke and Nicole get back together

Nicole goes to Sam and Brooke and asks them to stop Unique. She doesn't want Unique to ruin the students. Brooke and Nicole become best friends again and everything will be fine until Kennedy High is bought out and converted into a retirement home. The youth are being forced to take their GREs because the old people don't want to wait for their property, which means that the youth go to college earlier. The screen goes black and - poof! - 5 years have passed. Mary Cherry bought Melrose Place and they all live there without paying rent. The last three months of the season would have parodied Twentysomething stories.

DVDs

DVDs have so far only been released in the US and can only be played on RC-1 DVD players.

Web links