One teen learned her parents are Soviet spies. One caught her father having adulterous sex, and another read headlines about it. One’s father was accused of terrorism; another teen was kidnapped to force her terrorist-fighting dad to kill a presidential candidate.
It’s tough being a teenage daughter on a TV drama. It’s hardly a wasteland, however, as characters tend to be challenging (especially to their parents), intelligent, occasionally annoying, only rarely happy and more clued in than their oblivious younger brothers.
Here’s a sampling of notable teen drama queens:
Paige Jennings (Holly Taylor) of FX’s The Americans. Season 4 première Wednesday at 10.
Paige’s Christianity contrasts with her Soviet-born parents’ Communism in this 1980s tale of Cold War espionage in Washington, D.C. Parental espionage and secrecy take a toll on domestic bliss, as Paige often must fend for herself and her younger brother. She put her travel-agent parents in jeopardy by telling her pastor they are spies (although how many kids haven’t fleetingly fantasized about having their elders locked up forever?).
And things may only get worse for U.S. native Paige, who could be recruited into the family business as one of the Second Generation Illegals. (Now, that’s a band we’d listen to.) At least that business is spying and not running a travel agency. Thanks, not-yet-ubiquitous Internet!
Grace Florrick (Makenzie Vega) of CBS’ The Good Wife, Sunday at 9.
Grace, another devoted Christian, has had an easier go than Paige, but she has had to deal with her politician father’s jail time and publicly documented unfaithfulness, her mother’s transformation of home into an office, a couple of out-there grandmothers and lascivious online creeps who like to ogle politicians’ daughters.
She provides conscientious and challenging counsel to her atheist mother, Alicia. She didn’t flinch when her mom hung out her shingle at their apartment, doing a nifty impersonation of a paralegal and client recruiter.
Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) of AMC’s Mad Men.
That adorable tyke running around with a plastic bag over her head grew up, with a few bumps, to be a savvy teen, essentially taking on a parental role when her mother couldn’t and father wouldn’t.
Sally’s love for philandering dad Don was shaken when she caught him in bed with a neighbour, but he wanted her respect, which led to a rapprochement. Sally’s famous clashes with her mother, Betty, subsided when Betty became mortally ill.
Sally should receive a commendation for surviving the Draper parenting regimen, and Shipka earns bonus points for adjusting to three actors playing younger brother, Bobby. At least the lad’s boneheadedness remained consistent.
Dana Brody (Morgan Saylor) of Showtime’s Homeland.
Dana had difficulty adjusting to the return of her long-absent PoW father, Nick, who came home a war hero before being accused of terrorism.
Dana, who also had a clueless younger brother, kept her father’s conversion to Islam secret, and her phone call stopped him from a suicide-bombing attack. On the other hand, she later outed her dad’s conversion, often fought with her mother, tried to kill herself, sent topless selfies to her boyfriend and took a joy ride with the vice-president’s son that resulted in a woman’s death.
In the process, Dana felt the wrath of savage and perhaps undue criticism.
Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert) of Fox’s 24.
Kim is the Wile E. Coyote of the TV teen genre. Superspy Jack Bauer’s daughter was kidnapped; her mother was killed by a mole; her father chopped off her boyfriend’s hand to stop a lethal virus; she was almost exposed to nerve gas; she was abducted again; and she saved her father from nerve gas. (To be fair, she was never crushed by an anvil.)
But we’ll always remember Kim facing off against another cartoonish animal, the threatening cougar, 24’s warm-blooded version of jumping the shark and evidence that into every drama a little slapstick may fall.
