A Girl Named Jo

Sincere and well-acted -- if a bit cheap-looking -- this drama has appeal for middle- and elementary-school viewers who will warm to the two charming leads and their budding friendship. Setting a teen show in the 1960s is a little different -- today's tweens haven't heard of The Wonder Years -- and the period setting lends the two-friends-team-up-to-solve-a-mystery framework some extra appeal, even if the showrunners play fast and loose with historical accuracy (Pop Art as the theme for a 1963 high school dance? Really? And To Kill a Mockingbird wasn't even published until a year after the first episode supposedly takes place). Kids who do research using old newspapers, who've never even seen a computer, and who mostly deal with gentle issues like parties and friend groups? What a concept!

On the down side, some of the characters in A Girl Named Jo are a little gratuitously mean, like a cheerleader who calls a character a "skag" and a "four-eyed sweathog" before pushing her down in a mud puddle. Her male counterpart sneers at a brother that his sister will be "in the backseat" of his car before long, and mocks him for working at a diner. Obviously, these over-the-top mean characters are being set up for a comeuppance, but parents may want to make a point about how unacceptable these actions are -- and how much they hurt those on the receiving end.