Monday, November 2, 2009

I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant

Don't worry, Mom: This isn't a personal confession.

Instead, I'm referring to the popular show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," now airing its second season on TLC.

I caught a marathon of the show while preparing to hit downtown Halloween night. Few goblins are scarier than watching a dramatic reenactment of a woman giving birth in her pants.

For the uninitiated, Slate summarizes a typical episode of the series:

What to expect when they're not expecting? An off-screen narrator, his voice mitigating the insistent sonority of a true-crime-show newsreader with the studied warmth of a third-year resident, smoothes the flow of each 15-minute segment as the video cuts between new interviews with the parents and professional re-enactments of their old selves.

I'm astounded by this show's mere existence, but I'm equally amazed producers found enough first-person stories to air marathons on a regular basis.

"I Didn't Know I Was Pregant" is one of those shows people probably joked about 10 years ago, noting, "TV might be bad, but it'll never air something like that."

Look who's laughing now.

On the plus side, I'm now hopeful we'll soon see a primetime version of "I Didn't Know I Was an Annoying Facebook User."