Samantha "Sam" McPherson is a main character on Popular, and arguably the protagonist of the series. She is portrayed by Carly Pope. Sam is an ambitious student journalist, setting moral stakes and integrity forth in her endeavours, but sometimes deviating when she gets tunnel vision (notably regarding Brooke McQueen), in no small part spurred on by the loss of her late father, journalist Joe McPherson. Sam always aspires to do what's right, and her ambition can spell conflict with her friends, which she usually manages to work out by allowing herself to be vulnerable and honest about her feelings.
She is intelligent and determined, Sam McPherson is strong-willed, articulate and very stubborn. Sam's father died when she was fourteen. An only child, she lives alone with her mother until the merging of the McPherson and McQueen families. After her mother gives birth to her and Brooke's father's baby, Sam becomes a half-sister to baby girl MacKenzie. Sam is one of the "unpopular" girls at Kennedy High, along with her best friends Harrison, Carmen, and Lily, a situation that changes when she and Brooke McQueen begin living together. Sam is the editor of the school paper (although as the series progressed, the paper ceased being mentioned) and often wrote stories that exposed hypocrisy and unfairness at Kennedy High. She dates football player George Austin, but eventually discovers feelings for longtime best friend Harrison John after he confesses his love for her. Sam is funny, passionate and has an oft-voiced social conscience, but is quick to anger and slow to let go of hostility. She is also painfully insecure and masks this with a prickly attitude. Her complex and initially hostile/eventually close relationship with Brooke McQueen is one of the cornerstones of the series.
