TV Reviews : Glimpses of High-School Life in ‘Yearbook’

Rarely has anything been as aptly titled as the new Fox series “Yearbook.”

Premiering at 8:30 tonight on Channels 11 and 6, this nonfiction half hour, dwelling on a high school in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, gives you exactly what you get in a yearbook: moments, fleeting glimpses, snapshots in time, an episodic flip-through view of school days that lingers only until the next glossy page is turned.

The style is arresting, making tonight’s dual themes at middle-class Glenbard West High School--a homecoming queen contest and teen pregnancy--surely watchable. So is a somewhat stale subsequent episode (in the program’s regular time slot at 8:30 p.m. Saturdays) that looks at the buildup to the Persian Gulf War through the eyes of students.

What “Yearbook” doesn’t give you, though, are insights that penetrate its slick veneer.

In effect, this is “Cops” Goes to School, a nearly narration-free series that relies on something approaching cinema verite to spin a supposedly true-life narrative.

There is genuine emotion here, even in conjunction with the relatively trivial homecoming contest, as one of the finalists and her mother break down and cry because a stroke will prohibit the girl’s father from escorting her to the homecoming dance. Still more compelling is the plight of an estranged teen couple about to become parents.

Yet a half hour minus commercials is hardly time enough to tell two stories in even moderate depth. And in any event, don’t believe that this is anything but TV-tailored truth, for the mere presence of a camera, whether unobtrusive or under the noses of its subjects, inevitably distorts reality.

Fox notes that the series, from New Screen Concepts, employs no actors. Yet one could argue that everyone who appears in front of a camera, even the rankest amateur, becomes an actor.

At one point tonight, for example, the battling soon-to-be parents meet at a park bench to discuss “what is gonna happen basically before the kid is born.” Although the sequence is poignant, you wonder if they are essentially addressing each other or the lens.

Fox says “Yearbook” will remain at Glenbard for the duration of its nine-episode commitment, and that if it is renewed, will move on to another school. More teens, more glints of life.