As I mentioned Monday, the new CBS comedy Accidentally on Purpose is based on a memoir by time.com film critic Mary Pols. Pols, like her alter ego played by Jenna Elfman, in real life got pregnant accidentally by a much younger man. Unlike Elfman’s character, but like many other women with unplanned pregnancies, Pols had considered getting an abortion. The TV version of her does not—much like most pregnant women on TV since Maude’s anomalous abortion over three decades ago—and in an essay for Double X, Pols asks why:
I sold the option [to the story], and in doing so, I have had to let it go. I do see why the barest outline of our lives would make an appealing premise for a TV show, although I don’t think anyone should aim to make their lives sitcom fodder. (Once, in my first trimester, I suggested to Matt that we move into together to co-parent. “That sounds like a sitcom,” he said, dubiously. I dropped the idea immediately.) And remembering that Billie is not me is to the key to good mental health amid the weirdness of all this.
(Disclosure: my editor forwarded this link but neither she nor Pols asked me to blog about it. I just thought (though, as I wrote before, I didn’t like the sitcom) that it was an interesting story, and I’m guessing you will too.)
