James at 15/16 revolves around the life of sophomore James Hunter (played by '70's teen heartthrob Lance Kerwin who featured long blond hair and dazzling blue eyes) who recently moved from Oregon to Boston, MA. His breezy outgoing personality, being a strong swimmer, a fearless reporter/photographer on the school newspaper and good looks means he makes new friends quickly at Bunker Hill High. Made in 1977/78, this show is a huge trip down 1970's memory lane with lots of wide collars, fat ties, bright colored shirts and jackets, tight jeans with bell bottoms, long haired boys and '70's teen slang like man, brother, lets split, and dig it. The local teen hang out joint features cool '70's music and disco dancing. It harks back to an age of reel to reel movies, chalkboards, kids writing old fashioned letters to each other, huge gas guzzling cars, no video games, limited obesity and all communication via land line phones and expensive long distance calls from pay phones. There was plenty of politically incorrect attitudes expressed as well.
It was certainly a simpler age but yet the series traverses some cutting edge subjects not seen in TV shows targeting teens at the time such as James losing his virginity, possibly catching an STD (called VD back then) and a very intense and accurate look at teen alcoholism. In fact, hard as it is to believe, the frank coverage of such issues led to the show's 2nd season being cancelled due to parental complaints.
James comes across as a very typical 15/16 year old boy, anxious to be accepted by friends, crazy about girls, not knowing how to handle girls' mysterious ways, conflict with his dad during driving lessons, typical teenage mood swings, being grounded for stupid decisions, peer pressure and body image issues (in one episode he thinks he's too short and tries a body stretching kit!). The series is extremely authentic because almost all the child actors are the age of their characters complete with adolescent awkwardness and angst. You can see why Lance Kerwin became so popular; marrying model quality good looks to a sweet innocence that any girl would quickly fall in love with. He became renown for sensitive intense roles and he does this in spades in James at 15.
It was certainly a simpler age but yet the series traverses some cutting edge subjects not seen in TV shows targeting teens at the time such as James losing his virginity, possibly catching an STD (called VD back then) and a very intense and accurate look at teen alcoholism. In fact, hard as it is to believe, the frank coverage of such issues led to the show's 2nd season being cancelled due to parental complaints.
James comes across as a very typical 15/16 year old boy, anxious to be accepted by friends, crazy about girls, not knowing how to handle girls' mysterious ways, conflict with his dad during driving lessons, typical teenage mood swings, being grounded for stupid decisions, peer pressure and body image issues (in one episode he thinks he's too short and tries a body stretching kit!). The series is extremely authentic because almost all the child actors are the age of their characters complete with adolescent awkwardness and angst. You can see why Lance Kerwin became so popular; marrying model quality good looks to a sweet innocence that any girl would quickly fall in love with. He became renown for sensitive intense roles and he does this in spades in James at 15.