That’s a really weird blog post title, isn’t it?  No, this is not the blog post where I finally transition into becoming a woman. (Fun Fact: had I been born a girl, I would’ve been named “Charlene.”)

Rather, this is a post where I exhort you to watch…

MTV.

I know. I know. Just push past it. For now, just nod and smile for me, okay? I don’t need the twisted frowns, the raised eyebrows, the “jerk-off” motions performed by mocking hands. Stop sniggering. Stop it right now.

I’m not suggesting you plant your breadbox down in front of MTV for 12 hours and absorb whatever programming shines into your dull, vacant eyes. I get it. I’m not MTV’s target audience anymore. I was once, but no longer. I have no interest in Jersey Shore (though I did inadvertently convince Tyger Williams that I was a writer for that show), I used to watch Real World when it seemed filled with semi-real people as opposed to drunken 18-year-old drama-monkeys, and I would prefer that the show Teen Mom be renamed Meteor Strike (though, full disclosure, my wife loves this show).

That brings us to My Life As Liz.

I think…

I think I love this show.

At least, I like it. A lot. Maybe I “like-like” it.

Maybe it’s not a great show. Maybe I’m grading on a curve, like a starving man who eats at Sizzler and finds it a religious experience. I dunno. But I watched it, and I found myself taken in by its charms and by its earnestness. It’s a “scripted reality” show in roughly the same territory as The Hills or… Lacuna Bitch or Vagooner Beach or whatever those shows are (ever watch one? It’s almost like watching an art installation or abstract film, but not in a good way). Here, though, instead of taking handful of vapid rich kids in a vapid rich area of the city, it goes with middle-class high school kids in the middle of East Fucking Nowhere, Texas. Further, our protagonist, the titular Liz, is a girl who did not so much fall from social grace but pushed herself to fall. She once belonged to the empty-headed blonde hotties, but like SkyNet, she became self-aware.

At present, that’s the show. It’s her senior year, she’s realized that she’s different from anyone else, she’s embraced it, and life as a result is effectively a little slice of high school hell. She’s surrounded by cheerleaders and conservative Christians and her gaggle of doofy geek buddies (who gamble with comic books instead of money), and she’s clearly trying to navigate these strange waters until she can reach the other side of the shore (i.e. “end of high school”). Mind you, the “reality” part of this show is tenuous, as best — Liz Lee plays herself, and this is her interpretation of her senior year, but that year has come and gone. It’s not like they filmed it as it happened.

What do I like about it? It’s funny, for one. It feels sharp without being sharply written. Does that sound strange? What I mean is, a Kevin Smith film is sharply written, and it wears that on its sleeve. People don’t really talk like that. Buffy was the same way. Or Gilmore Girls. I love all those things, but the writing sometimes came off as a little insincere, because it’s so tightly wound. Here, the writing feels like the way funny teenagers talk; not always spot-on, but natural, and still with that occasional slash of razor-wit.

Two, I like the story here. I can’t help but embrace the irony that MTV has become the guardian of social norms as opposed to the guardian of freaks and miscreants (which, in some way, it once was), but here they have a show where the main character would probably never ever watch MTV, ever. She’s probably think it was bullshit. She represents what MTV used to look like, maybe, and the girls she considers her nemeses are far more in line with the girls of The Hills and such.

Three, it’s like Daria and My So-Called Life had a baby. Except with a kind of “low-budget indie comedy” vibe.

Four, I dig the protagonist. She’s cute, funny, imperfect, quirky (maybe too quirky?). I probably would’ve wanted to date her in high school or college.

Fifth, the music the music the music. Once again, maybe I’m like the starving dude in the desert, but Sweet Molly McGoggins, the music is great. Whodathunkit? Music. On MTV. The show has near-constant music playing, and at least half-the-time puts a little bar at the bottom of the screen to tell you what the song is, by whom, and on what album it lives. Given that over the course of the first two episodes I heard at least seven songs from my iTunes playlist, that tells me it’s got a beat to which I can dance. Because MTV kindly puts the show’s music list online, I can peruse it. In fact, it allowed me to discover new music. I’m always looking for solid ways of music discovery, and now I have a new source. (For instance, before I did not know the joy of The Bird And The Bee. Now, I do.)

So, yeah. On this, the day of the Manliest Contest, the Super Bowl (which would be much more interesting were it the Supernatural Bowl, y’know, like instead of Saints Versus Colts, it’s Catholic Saints Versus Pagan Vampires or something), I come to you as a 30-something dude and recommend to you an MTV show about a pixie-like teen girl. That’s just how I do.

Normally, you can check out  full My Life As Liz episodes on the web, but they seem to be gone until February 18th. I checked ‘em out On Demand, so, try that.

Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you.

Yet.