[Always *]

One Tree Hill has to be one of the worst for this. Lucas's mom/uncle Keith seem to be the only parental figures around who actually bother with any parenting. All the other parents are never there or are total fuck ups... but I also feel like the writers/creators/producers never intended us to take the show super serious in a "obviously this is what's 16-17 year olds are like" kind of a way.

And I agree. I think rules and regs are a huge thing in why the actors are casted and are older than the character. This is especially true in shows like Game of Throkes. Like Danyaeris is only 13 in the books. But there are numerous sex scenes between her and Drogo and I'm ofetty sure it's illegal to have a minor getting naked and/or participating in a sex scene on screen - you'll notice in many teeny shows that it's only ever discussed later, they'll cut out after the kissing even with adult actors

One show I think is well done is Modern Family. The Foster is also good for casting people who actually look / act like children (teenagers, whatever). One of the worst for casting is smallville. The guy who's Clark Kent was like 25 when they cast him as a 14 year old. Maybe he was like 20 or 21 bit still, he was a very adult looking guy and it was unbelievable. Like I was not falling for that ish. Oddly enough, that was ashow where the writers sometimes tried to insert proper parenting... but at the same time, his bff is a journalist and hacker type with skills that there's no way she'd have that young (because, seriously she's smart but not a prodigy genius....) nor would she,have access to the stuff she's got access to. The girl he loves forever manages a cafe while she's in high school. Again, like, what? You can't realistically run a cafe in the evenings off school. Oh well...