Revisiting The Ashlee Simpson Show: Episode 1 – Ashlee’s Upward Move from 7th Heaven

I start my journey recapping The Ashlee Simpson Show. We meet our cast and learn the stakes (hint: it involves a not-great boyfriend and a lot of hats)

This is the first installment in my recap of The Ashlee Simpson Show. These recaps are a perk of paid membership, and members will find them in their inbox weekly. You can upgrade your membership here. 

Episode 1: “Ashlee Moves Onward and Upward"

I really have to hand it to MTV for opening the pilot of this show with an episode title that already invites questions. Moves onward . . . from what? Moving upward. . . from where? 7th Heaven? 

 First, to be a viewer of the Ashlee Simpson Show, you must accept 3 truths:

1. Ashlee Simpson is a vanguard artist who has uniquely significant things to say about being alive in 2003-2004

2. Ashlee Simpson has terrible taste in men and we may not question this, or the possible impact of Dadager to the stars, Joe Simpson, as the source of her clear daddy issues. 

3. Every man in this program is a source of danger, especially if they work in the music business. 

4. (bonus truth): no one has ever looked better wielding a flip phone 

I am about to embark on A Walk to Remember which will hopefully be less traumatic than the Mandy Moore vehicle of the same name. Yes, I am starting my recap of The Ashlee Simpson Show, which aired on MTV from 2004-2005. 

Thank you to the hero who posted the entire run on Youtube that made this opus possible! 

Now, let’s begin by stepping into a time machine and traveling back to 2003 when this show began filming. Maybe some of you were not alive, maybe some of you were applying for college (me), and maybe some of you were praying a boy would not ask you to prom for reasons you still could not articulate (also me). 

2003 was a wild year in American culture. Like, where were you when Ruben Studdard won the second season of American Idol?  (Moment of silence for the boy in my college class named Clay Aiken who was not that Clay Aiken. It was a rough few years to navigate that name in the culture when you had no desire to sing or be serenaded with “Invisible” as you went about campus). And when will the government honor August 1, 2003 as the founding date of Myspace aka the beginning of a revolution in misguided posting and hotly-contested friend rankings? (Who was in your top 8?) It was also the year Martha Stewart was indicted, but we all know you can’t keep my Leo thirst-trap queen down. Sure, 2003 was the year the US invaded Iraq and declared “mission accomplished,” but I’m here to recount a different conflict.