Brooke McQueen (Leslie Bibb) and Sam McPherson (Carly Pope), students at Jacqueline Kennedy High School, are polar opposites.

By the second season, Brooke and Sam realize that their parents were happy together, and therefore team up to reunite them, a move which results in the girls slowly becoming close friends, and even referring to each other as "family", though tensions rise when they both get involved with the same boy.

In a review for Amazon.com, Bret Fetzer wrote, "The key to Popular is how it merges melodramatic soap-opera stories with wrenchingly blunt and honest portrayals of the cruelties of adolescence.

While some viewers may find it galling to listen to a gorgeous young actress who's been on magazine covers moan about how she can't be as perfect as a model, the series tackles everything from anorexia to peer manipulation to teen sex with directness and an eye for moral and emotional complexity.

An episode about a Sadie Hawkins dance becomes a satirical farce about body image (female and male); a slumber party turns into brutal humiliation; a teacher decides to get a sex-change operation, prompting anxiety throughout the school.

Almost every character gets a moment of heartfelt grandstanding, yet the actors pull them off with commitment and guts ([Sara] Rue routinely turns speeches that could have been cheesy schlock into genuine pathos).

[14] Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope appeared in episode 6 of fellow WB series Grosse Pointe as actresses from Popular in a volleyball game against Johnny and Courtney.