Two girls who despise each other, due to being on opposite sides of the 'popularity fence', are forced together upon learning that their parents are getting married.
Popular still has the potential to strike some chords in viewers, but its chances are undermined by a cast that looks about 15 years too old to be high-school students and by writing that just doesn't seem credible, even for these characters.
Popular makes valid points about the unfairness of social stratification. But with its gimmicky camera work and flights of surrealism, it tries too hard to be hip.
Although designed to be mostly light and zippy, this series is memorable only when dealing honestly with serious issues... Such moments are relatively fleeting, however.
Characters spell out the themes more than necessary, but they're important themes, and the stories present adolescence as the morally complex, emotionally draining experience it is.
The point gets lost in the forced hubbub created by the producers, who haven't got anything new or thoughtful to say but who are going to exercise their TV First Amendment anyway.
Popular is socially reprehensible and relentlessly superficial. TV's latest high school series, from the WB, is also kind of fun... Popular is eye candy. Have a Starburst. Chew happy.