A few weeks ago, “Teen Mom” reality star Amber Portwood landed in the hospital after falling into a deep depression and threatening to commit suicide. This occurred after a phone conversation with Gary Shirley, the estranged father of her 2-year-old baby, Leah.
Shirley is, you may remember, infamously the man that she hit as MTV filmed the assault. Amber has since pled guilty to domestic violence charges and temporarily lost custody of Leah.
But on tonight’s premiere, the reality star’s biggest challenge is deciding between fatso Shirley, who has cheated on her, and Chris, a guy who loves her and the baby.
Chris has two other things going for him: He doesn’t look like he’s never met a Big Mac he didn’t love, and he doesn’t incite Amber to violence. Her misery here is confined to deciding between two boys.
Babies are hardly a factor in the show this season.
Farrah, another returning “Teen Mom,” has got bigger problems than suicide. Her baby’s father died, and her mother split her lip — but mostly she wants a boob job. She says it will help her “modeling career.” Clue: Real models don’t have ginormous boobs.
Catelynn is still living with her mother, April, after giving up the baby she had with her mother’s husband Butch’s son, Tyler. Don’t ask. Now mom has got to move, and Catelynn, who hasn’t graduated from high school, wants to get an apartment with Tyler, who has just turned 18 himself.
Finally, there’s Maci, who needs the child support of her ex, and is trying to make it while trying to find true love with boyfriend Kyle.
It’s all very “Friday Night Lights” — without the hair and makeup. Or the good scripts.
Unlike the riveting first two seasons, the show has degraded into just another scripted-sounding reality series about people who can no longer exist outside of the camera.
Ironically, more harm is probably been done by having the cameras on them 24/7 than if they’d had to adjust on their own. These kids and the boys in their life aren’t developing relationships, they’re learning how to keep creating more and more drama to keep being the darlings of TV and the tabloids — at any cost.
Unfortunately, the cost is their children. The show has completely shifted away from the reality of raising a child — hard enough for educated, middle-income families — into a soap about looking for love in all the wrong places. And the wrong place to look is under the glare of cameras. The babies are mere window dressing in these ugly lives.