Hidden Palms

Despite the fact that it revolves around standard-issue teens with troubled, rich parents, it pushes the formula a few steps . . . make that several steps farther.

While much of it is silly, corny or clichéd and relies more on easy effects — the power ballad, the overwrought sex scene — than on the subtle explorations of people and place that the pilot seems to promise, the series is, on the whole, highly digestible summer fun.

In January or February, I might not have found room in my own schedule for a combination murder mystery and teen soap. I certainly would have wondered more about setting a show about adolescents among the ancients of Palm Springs. Now I'm just inclined to appreciate the little things.

Even the dialogue is mediocre, a surprise coming from Williamson.

To the producers' credit, this storyline advances fairly rapidly; it's just not that engaging or surprising.

Overwritten and underacted (by the kids anyway), it strings out its weekly climactic shockers — some of them truly unnerving — with artery-hardening blobs of moldy adolescent whining.

You're likely to find more fascinating figures and intriguing dramatis personae in the latest catalogue from J. Peterman, and somehow Peterman comes off as more emotionally authentic.