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The Morning After: Pregnant Pause

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ABC

ABC

It was Freak Out About Your Teenagers Night in America yesterday. Bravo debuted NYC Prep, which sought to convince the Real Housewives audience that wealthy kids were out violating each other and their parents’ bank accounts with all the vigor of those on Gossip Girl. Meanwhile, ABC began its “limited” newsmag series, Primetime: Family Secrets, about pregnant teenagers and their parents, and MTV continued airing its new docu-series, 16 and Pregnant. 

 

Maybe it should be surprising that the more measured and matured of the two enterprises was the one on MTV—probably because that network, after all, programs on the assumption that it is actually programming for teenagers, rather than their easily worried parents. So where ABC’s Primetime amped up the melodrama, while peppering kids with head-scratching questions like, “Were you trying to get pregnant?,” MTV’s series takes a more sober, less sanctimonious, verite approach, largely letting its pregnant teens tell their own stories. 

In related teen-pregnancy news, the other night saw the season 2 of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I couldn’t bear the campy, sex-horror-show pilot, it caught on, and I’ve heard positive things from some people who have stuck with it. Anyone want to tell me why I should give it a second chance?