This Is the Most Rocking Game of Charades Ever

Aw, summer television. When else can a show entitled Switched at Birth become a viable option to watch? The title alone makes it sounds like it would be better suited to be a Lifetime movie than an actual series. But considering that I am deaf and was switched at birth (okay, only one of those is remotely true) I felt obligated to tune in. Plus I wanted to see how, or even if, they would explain how someone did not realize that their kid was of a different ethnicity (granted I am still waiting Big Love to explain how the original Hendrickson’s managed to have three kids with three different hair colors).

As it turns out, at least one of the parents actually realize that the blonde kid may not actually be his which means the others are pretty much idiots. Not that I expect someone who tried to hook up with her son and JD McCoy’s father to be a MENSA members but just because a distant relative was Italian does not explain a half Italian half Hispanic daughter when you are both very WASPy.

Bad parenting aside, Switched at Birth managed not to so bad its good, or really even just plain bad at times. Sure there were some overtly primetime soap clichés like gambling additions, the warring mothers, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, and the most egregious soap cliché which went into high gear in the finale and will no doubt carry into the next season: the love triangle between the girls that were switched at birth. But the show managed to find a heart that other new shows this summer never found (see yesterday’s Falling Skies season review). Katie Leclerc (who’s first acting gig was ironically on the episode of Veronica Mars where Mac learned she was switched at birth with Madison Sinclair) was a great find as the deaf Daphne and it is hard not to root for her on the show. While Vanessa Marano is, well, entertaining in a mini-Eliza Dushku kind of way. Hopefully ABC Family is smart enough to hold off new episodes until next summer because much like last year’s Pretty Little Liars, the show probably is not good enough to catch when it is up against real competition.

Switched at Birth 1.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.