MTV continues to push the envelope with Faking It, yet another spunky, whipsmart romp through the high schools of today. But in its quest to be uber current, could MTV actually be getting a little too smart? Barbed and self-referential dialog aside (been there, done that), the climate of the show may just be a few too many steps ahead.

In Faking It we find two girls, Karma and Amy, at the veritable bottom of the popularity food chain. Through a series of only-on-television high school snafus, the pair is mistaken for lesbian lovers, and since it’s 2014, this ends up helping their chances at social domination, not harming them. So, they decide to keep up the charade, even though it might actually be a little too close to the truth for one of them.

For those of you doing your YA homework, this scenario might seem a little familiar—last year’s G.B.F., a film that we admit we can’t stop talking about here at YA Mag, brandished an almost identical storyline: Tanner Daniels (Michael J. Willett, also present here in Faking It) is outed against his will and is suddenly vaulted to high school royalty. It isn’t surprising, then, to note that the debutant writer of G.B.F., George Northy, is also on the team of scribes for Faking It.

Willett, for his part, has referred to his Faking It character Shane, a popular gay kid, as Tanner “5 years later.” Apparently, this show is no longer concerned with bullying—there is even a sensitive and worldly straight jock type named Liam, played by the gorgeously British Gregg Sulkin of PLL fame. And while it’s more than commendable to portray all different types of characters, and no longer exclusively link gay students to victimhood, are we really at a point where we can dismiss high school bullying altogether?

While the format here is a nifty update to the bromance (Amy and Karma share a…sis-mance?), it’s going to take more than sharp comebacks (which Awkward already does masterfully) to make Faking It a long-standing hit. Let’s see where the rest of this season goes.