Last year filmmaker R.J. Cutler and two camera crews followed 14 kids at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago, intending, he says, to make "a nonfiction My So-Called Life." A season ago, Fox would no doubt have marketed the resulting series as a teen drama. Now the catchphrase du jour is "reality TV." Trends come and trends go, but it is never a good year to sell a documentary.
Poetic justice, perhaps, that the home of reality fare like Alien Autopsy should end up in this semantic bind. Yet you can forgive American High (Wednesdays, 9 p.m. E.T.) the creative...
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