I Hate My Teenage Daughter is an American sitcom created by Sherry Bilsing and Ellen Kreamer which follows two mothers who fear their daughters are turning into the kind of girls who tormented them in high school.
The series aired in the USA on Fox from 30 November, 2011 to 20 March, 2012. Only seven of the 13 produced episodes aired in the USA; the remaining six episodes first aired on Australia and New Zealand.
I Hate My Teenage Daughter premiered in South Africa on DStv's Vuzu channel on Monday 1 April 2013, at 19h00. New episodes broadcast weekly. There are 13 half-hour episodes in one season.
Synopsis
I Hate My Teenage Daughter is a multi-camera comedy about two best friends who are single moms struggling to raise their difficult and over-privileged teenage daughters.
Annie (Emmy Award winner Jaime Pressly, My Name Is Earl) and Nikki (Tony Award winner Katie Finneran, Wonderfalls) are former high school outcasts whose pasts inform their current parenting styles.
Annie, who was raised in an ultra-strict, über-religious household where she had little-to-no freedom, pretty much allows her daughter, Sophie (Kristi Lauren, You), to do whatever she wants.
Nikki, once an unpopular, overweight social pariah, has reinvented herself as a pretty Southern belle whose top priority is providing her daughter, Mackenzie (Aisha Dee, Dead Gorgeous), with the childhood she never had.
Sophie and Mackenzie are best friends, which leads to a lot of co-parenting for Annie and Nikki. They have given the girls everything they asked for and everything they never had: clothes, money and self-esteem. The unintended consequence is they have created two mean girls just like the ones who tortured them years ago.
Sophie finds her mother embarrassing and mocks her at every opportunity, but she secretly needs her mom and knows that her behavior is not always appropriate.
Mackenzie, on the other hand, is the more manipulative of the daughters - she knows how to work her mother's insecurities to her benefit.
Annie's ex-husband, Matt (Eric Sheffer Stevens, As the World Turns), wants to be a good parent, but is too clueless to know what that even means.
That leaves his brother, JACK (Kevin Rahm, Desperate Housewives, Judging Amy), an attractive, high-powered attorney, to serve as more of a father figure for Sophie.
Jack's meddling would annoy Annie more if she didn't have such a crush on him. Gary (Chad Coleman, The Wire), Nikki's ex, also tries to help raise his challenging daughter, but the couple's complicated relationship often makes his involvement more difficult.
As their daughters begin to experience their first high school dances and other life-changing teen events, Annie and Nikki are often reminded of their own tortured adolescent years.
But when Sophie and Mackenzie's mean-girl antics cross the line, the moms quickly realize that they must, for the first time, dole out some real punishment and fix what is broken.
They have no idea how to do that, but they do know one thing: they can't do it without each other.
I Hate My Teenage Daughter is produced by Bonanza Productions, Inc. in association with Warner Bros. Television. Sherry Bilsing-Graham (The New Adventures of Old Christine, Friends) and Ellen Kreamer (The New Adventures of Old Christine, Friends) are executive producers.
The series is written by Bilsing-Graham and Kreamer. Andy Ackerman (Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine) executive-produced and directed the pilot.