I don’t think I’ve seen the Julia Stiles-Heath Ledger movie of the same name, or if I did, it made no impression on me. So I don’t know what the title means, but I do know I like “10 Things I Hate About You” (7 p.m. Central Tuesdays on ABC Family), the first good TV series of the summer.
Here are seven things I like about this half-hour dramedy (I couldn’t come up with a full 10, but at least this way I can give a nod to that catchy Miley Cyrus tune from last year):
1. Kat, the older sister, reminds me of Sage from “Privileged” (she even looks the same). Superficially, she’s scary and unapproachable, but she has too many likable traits to be the villain of the piece.
2. Bianca, the younger sister, wants to be popular, but she doesn’t want to step on people to achieve that goal (unlike her mentor, Chastity, who basically runs the high school).
3. Larry Miller has played the smug, sardonic dad before, seemingly about 100 times. This is the first time I like him. He teaches and disciplines his daughters in a witty fashion. After Kat deliberately runs into Chastity’s car, Dad has her maneuver around the house in a wheelchair until she learns her lesson about reckless driving.
4. A show about high school cliques seems like a particularly shallow idea considering the state of the world today. But the pilot episode addresses this right away, as Kat criticizes Bianca’s priorities at the dinner table (and Dad makes a compelling counter-argument that being popular isn’t a bad goal).
5. The show is fast-paced and witty. In listing the more important issues in the world, Kat mentions Kim Jong Il. Bianca says “Speak English!” and later refers to the North Korean dictator as Long Duk Dong (a character in “Sixteen Candles,” of course). Something about her delivery of the line made me giggle.
6. Nicholas Braun, who plays Cameron, who is doting after Bianca, is a convincing actor. This is just another “guy likes girl who doesn’t notice him” storyline, but if it’s done this well, I’ll bite.
7. I’ve been looking for a reason to jump back on the ABC Family bandwagon since The-N and The CW began abandoning the young adult genre. I know everyone loves “Greek,” but I couldn’t quite get into it. And “From the creator of ‘7th Heaven’ ” was reason enough for me to avoid “Secret Life.” But “10 Things I Hate About You” is easy to like, and it makes ABC Family the clear winner among youth TV.