"Glee" is about singing, dancing, nerdy highschoolers. "House" is about a misanthropic, Vicodin-addicted genius diagnostician. "Bones" is about a forensic anthropologist and team who assist the FBI on murder cases. No one is still entirely sure what "Fringe" is about. (Two universes? Creepy bald men in hats? Practical applications for LSD?)
But there is something that all four of these very disparate shows have in common (apart from my loyal viewership). 100% of these shows have major story arcs regarding pregnancies.
I'll let "Glee" off the look a little here, since Quinn and Terry's baby drama was mostly confined to last season (though they still mention it on the show ad nauseum). It's a bit unlikely that Quinn would get pregnant her very first time, but hey, I know it does sometimes happen in real life (though probably not as often as people claim that's what happened). And I understand that, with shows stretching into several seasons, you run out of ways to generate drama, and pregnancy is an easy fix for that. But to someone having difficulty conceiving, it's starting to feel a little excessive.
Like in "Bones". It was bad enough when Angela got pregnant. (Having Hodgins repeat the word "baby" about 30 times when she told him didn't help.) Then we had to have extra baby drama by posing the possibility that their baby would be born blind. But all turns out well when they had their baby in the season finale and his eyes were fine.
But, oh no, here's another twist! Brennan is now pregnant with Booth's baby! Even though she's over 30, and they only slept together one time when they were both under extreme stress. (After squintern Mr. Nigel-Murray was shot through the heart and died in their arms. Oh, and spoiler alert: Mr. Nigel-Murray was shot through the heart and died in Booth and Brennan's arms.)
You know what, writers of "Bones"? I'm willing to suspend belief when you tell me Brennan can figure out how someone died by playing with fragments of their mangled skull, or that Angela has a magic computer that possesses the power of 300 internets. But don't expect me to believe that a woman past prime fertility got pregnant that easily.
Let's move onto "Fringe". We're expected to believe that Fauxlivia (or Ho-livia, depending on who you ask) undertook a super-organized secret mission to her's universe's opposite and forgot to bring birth control? Leaving her to conveniently get knocked up by Peter while she was pretending to be his girlfriend?
Fine, maybe the other side's version of the Pill doesn't work over here. Whatever. But then, of course, you just HAD to give her pregnancy complications, as well. And not just any complication, oh no. The other universe has to have an awful, unsurvivable pregnancy complication that's really just a hyped-up, viral version of preeclampsia, called "Super Pre-E". Thanks for the post-traumatic stress flare-up, Fox. Olivia's emergency delivery was such a pleasant reminder of the emergency induction I went through when I had severe preeclampsia.
You couldn't think of anything to use besides the leading cause of maternal death in the world? You're science fiction writers. Just make something up. How about saying Fauxlivia had Rhinehart's Syndrome. I just came up with that off the top of my head, and it sounds fine. This is an alternate universe you're writing about here. Literally anything can make sense.
Okay, let's move on from "Fringe". How about "House"? Oh, that's right...Cuddy's daughter was adopted when her biological mother died from preeclampsia. Nevermind that House almost never has patients die; I'm pretty sure the writers could come up with some clever way for him to cure cancer-AIDS if they felt like it. But, no. When you need to poignantly kill someone off, let's stick with good old pre-e.
Now, I'm not going to talk too much smack, because the last two episodes of this season of "House" were absolutely brilliant. (During the self-surgery scene my husband unironically remarked that Hugh Laurie has to be the greatest actor on television.) But there is one tangential storyline that's really bothering me...(Spoilers below.)
Taub knocked up his 22-year-old girlfriend. Okay, that's perfectly logical. It's also logical that he would want to avoid his ex-wife/friend with benefits while he comes to term with this news.
Then Rachel, his ex-wife/friend with benefits shows up with the news that, surprise! She's pregnant!
Rachel is over 40, and she and Taub were in no way actively TTC. You know what Fox? We need to take a break from each other. I'm glad that after tonight's "Glee" finale, it's nothing but re-runs for the rest of the summer.
Though I wouldn't be at all surprised if the "Glee" season ends with the announcement that Emma's pregnant, despite being a virgin.
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