I often feel like an archaeologist. I'm alway searching for TV shows long forgotten that still sand up to the test of time. Shows canceled after one season are the hardest to find. By definition fewer people have seen them and reviews are harder to come by.
Life As We Know It is one of those one season shows from 2004 that no one saw but was still a stellar show. Set in high school it has a much more realistic version of high school then most shows.
With that grasp on reality they were able to accomplish a student/teacher romance with more nuance then any other show has been able too.
One danger a lot of high school shows run it to is how much to include the parents. But the parents are written as real people and stay almost as compelling as the kids story lines.
The show is based on the young adult book Doing It which tries to give the male point of view. There is alway issues trying to bring people's internalized thoughts from a book to a script. LAWKI does this with an odd technique slowing down the background while green screening the character with incite in to the moment they are in. It does not work well and they stop using it as the show goes on but it does not detract from the over all show.
It's easy to see why the show only lasted one season. Consistently shows with a split focus on kid/family have a rough time with ratings and the odd editing technique would also scare people away early on.
While the student/teacher relationship would have definitely drawn viewers the other relationship involving Kelly Osborn would have also scared people away. Kelly did a great job and the story was very interesting but she does not fit the typical "hot girl" that draws in the demographics as well as her story line involved a mostly stable relationship which does also not typically draw crowds.
I'm not pointing out fault with the show because each "problem" was a real strengths of the show. Both the kid/parent split and Kelly Osborn were very strong parts of the show. I do think it's interesting to see why and how shows fail to gather a following from a public that makes very superficial decisions.
If you like my kind of shows this a great show to check out.