Here's the cringe-worthy plot: Bay and Daphne were switched at birth (duh) in the hospital by accident (something about nametags) and they and their families only find out about it 15 years later. Bay's white, picture-perfect family is wealthy; Daphne's Puerto Rican single mother is about to be evicted; Bay is artistic and entitled and so private school that she wears a uniform; Daphne is athletic and levelheaded and kind. Scriptwriting software probably comes with all this as preprogrammed macros.

The catch is that Daphne is also deaf. It certainly adds a fascinating element -- if only because it's unexpected, and we can't help but think about what we'd do in that situation -- and the show works hard to avoid making her deafness a gimmick. Unfortunately, it doesn't succeed. Daphne being deaf is soon turned into a device to highlight how uptight and WASPy Bay's parents are, and how tough and savvy Daphne and her mother are. They live in the ghetto, you guys! They know stuff.

To add to the surrealism, everything happens far too quickly -- even after both families find out about the switch, we never see them sit down separately and talk about it within their original family unit. They don't discuss how they feel about the news, what they're going to do about it or even what it means. After the big reveal, the next scene shows the two families meeting one another. And as you can imagine, since no one has voiced an opinion about any of it yet, it's awkward. Lots of predictable class and social-structure shenanigans ensue, made even more awkward by Bay's bratty behavior and everyone's insensitivity to Daphne's deafness. But, of course, by the end of the episode, it looks like they're eventually going to be one big happy family, with many a dramatic storyline mixed in. The girls are already falling for guys in their opposite neighborhoods -- Daphne's even falling for Bay's ex! Oh, ABC Family, I had hoped that Pretty Little Liars meant you were better than this now.

The only redeeming quality of this family love-and-hate-fest is Katie Leclerc's Daphne, who seems to be the only adult in this situation. While Bay's father is shoving private school down Daphne's throat, Bay's mother is acting weepy, Bay is acting out, and Daphne's mother indignantly ignores the situation, Daphne keeps her cool. And there's a moment -- the strongest moment in the premiere -- where we see why: Bay's father (well, technically Daphne's father) is dropping Daphne off at her house when she forgets her sweater in the car. He calls to her a few times and when she doesn't turn around, he remembers why. It's the shock of how quickly he can forget how difficult it must be for Daphne that drives the point home -- while the camera zooms in on his face as he hears the sounds of the neighborhood, one after the other. Daphne is the only character that understands how to act about the switched-at-birth situation because she has had to be patient and accepting her whole life. The people around her are just beginning to see that.

So yes, it's heartwarming and vomit-inducing all at once, entirely predictable and hopelessly unrealistic. The thing is, ABC Family doesn't really trust its viewers to want more than that, which is why such trite shows like Secret Life and Make It or Break It stay on the air, while Huge, their most daring show to date, didn't. This is the network that even pulled their reruns of Friday Night Lights! Switched At Birth may introduce us to "a new kind of family," but there's not much substance beyond it.

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