Judging a series by its soundtrack may be a little like judging a book by its cover, but for “Hidden Palms,” the newest “O.C.”-brand teen drama, or any “O.C.”-brand teen drama for that matter, the soundtrack is generally indicative of the show’s larger quality. “The O.C.”’s edgy soundtrack may have caused the commercialization of indie, but it certainly reflected the show’s unique and appealing irony. There is, however, nothing edgy about using Coldplay’s “Don’t Panic” or Damien Rice’s “The Blower’s Daughter,” two of the most overused brooding anthems of the Zach Braff generation and two of the prominent songs featured in the “Hidden Palms” pilot. “O.C.”-brand teen drama soundtrack logic goes something like this: if you’re going to attempt to make meaning by putting together a montage of rich brooding teenagers and their vapid parents at least use a song no one’s ever heard before. “Dawson Creek” creator Kevin Williamson is a few years too late, with his music choices and just about everything else, in “Hidden Palms,” a formulaic venture into pointlessness.
Johnny (Taylor Handley of “The O.C.”) turns to drugs and alcohol after witnessing his alcoholic father’s suicide, while his mother, Karen (Gail O’Grady), quickly remarries and relocates what’s left of her family to Palm Springs. Pre-father’s suicide Johnny is a math-loving overachiever who seems to get some sort of enjoyment out of crunching numbers. His father, on the other hand, is a poetry loving man who insists that Johnny do something creative with his life. The unintentional irony here is much more engrossing than anything that happens on the show: “Hidden Palms” itself is a number-crunching rip-off of every other series to come out of the teen drama formula and ignores any advice from its successful predecessors (“The O.C.” and “One Tree Hill”) to be different. Post-father’s suicide Johnny is a camera-snapping loner who seems to have taken his father’s advice. The obsession with photography though doesn’t work as a creative outlet. It seems like Johnny’s pictures will go straight to his MySpace.
Johnny’s neighbor Cliff (Michael Cassidy of “The O.C.”) and dark love interest Greta, with their fabricated intrigue, are mere plot-moving devices. Their now-dead friend Eddie brings the mystery to “Hidden Palms,” but the adults’ amusingly mundane conflict of shifting property lines is much more riveting. The property line conflict, however, probably wouldn’t make for good montage material.
Everything about “Hidden Palms” – even the manipulated ages of the characters – is borrowed (read: stolen) from its more entertaining predecessors. Johnny is a sophomore in high school, though he would’ve been a junior had he not gone to rehab. Sophomore year is always the starting point for a teen drama because the creators, in Josh Schwartz-“O.C.” fashion can add an extra year to high school while most of their viewers miss the gaping hole in time. “Hidden Palms” will likely not have to worry about this. It’ll probably graduate early.
