The Final Message of Baby Borrowers

Listen, if you read this column you know that we discuss (I like to think of this as a discussion and not a diatribe) what happens in TV shows.  You might refer to some of the things we talk about as "spoilers."  Consequently, don't read any more if you don't want to know what happened last night on Baby Borrowers, because we're talking about the ending of that show today. 

At very end of last night's episode a little postscript informed us that all the couples had broken up following the last episode.   Oh sure, they didn't say it like that, they gave each individual couple's update and it was worked into that update that the couple had broken up.

What are we to take from that?  What is the message, if any, that the viewer is left with at the end of the season?  Did the experience of living with their boyfriend/girlfriend cause the break-up?  Was it the attempting to parent?  Was it just the fact that none of these couples were really never the strongest anyway? 

I'm not afraid to tell you that I absolutely lean towards the couples not being the strongest ones in existence prior to the "experiment" beginning.  We instantly know that to be the case with Morgan and Daton.  We were told in the couple's introduction that they'd been having problems, that they were ready to break-up until they realized that they could go on TV if they were a couple.  What was the point of having a couple ready to end their relationship on the show anyway?  What sort of last gasp ridiculousness is that? 

Further, I have to assume that if the show is going to tell us that one couple is incredibly weak, it's not so wrong to assume that the rest of the couples aren't terribly strong.  I think the show was trying to pull a fast one, telling us that one couple was weak and saying nothing about the others, thereby implying that they were strong. 

I think it was a little bit of a mind game on the producers' part and that opinion is only strengthened when we look at Kelly and Austin.  From the first moment she was on the show Kelly acted like she was about seven years old.  She cried at having to put on the pregnancy belly and having an infant and oh so many other times.  And poor Austin, he just stood there and took it.  Kelly had that poor boy wrapped around her little finger.

It didn't matter what she did or how ridiculous she acted, Austin was always ready to lap up the grief and come running back for more.Oh sure, at some point during the season he changed and he stood up to Kelly, and maybe the show did help him do that.  Maybe that's the good that came out of the show, Austin realized that he couldn't handle two babies at the same time. 

So, there you go, two of the five couples had serious issues prior to starting the show.  I could go through and pull apart the reasons for the other couples being weak, but they're pretty obvious and that would just waste my time and yours.  Which means that we're just left with my original question of the message we are to take from the show?

I'm not sure there is one, except the one we already knew – babies (read: "teens") shouldn't have babies.  They just shouldn't, but did you need a TV show to tell you that?