Eggs, Babies and High School Health Classes

February 6th, 2008, 15 Comments »

Last night we were watching episode nine from season two of Veronica Mars. It was pretty lame (with the exception of a scene featuring Buffy alumni Charisma Carpenter and Alyson Hannigan), and featured an old television convention. Here’s an excerpt from the TV.com episode recap:

Neptune High School, classroom – Ms. Hauser’s sex education class is in session. Veronica and Duncan are in attendance. It’s welcome to parenthood as the students are asked to couple up and look after a baby doll which has sensors to detect how it is cared for.

This is a TV classic. In sex ed (or ‘health’ or ‘family planning’) class, students are forced to take care of an egg or baby doll for a week. The intent, of course, is to impress upon them how much work it is to take care of a baby, and thus compel to remain baby-free.

Hijinks always ensue, and there’s usually a moral lesson about who’s really the responsible kid, or a disclosure of someone actually being pregnant, and so forth.

I never did this in high school, despite it apparently being quite fashionable at the time. Did you?

Name That Plot Device

I started assembling a list of all the shows that have used this convention:

  • Veronica Mars
  • Beverly Hills 90210 - Julie says she remembers this, but I couldn’t find it. Does anybody recall egg-related fun on this show?
  • Degrassi Junior High - In the first opener of season two, the kids have to take care of eggs. If I recall correctly, Spike gives her egg to Snake Shane, the father of her baby. I think Snake screws up and breaks the egg.
  • Buffy The Vampire Slayer - In “Bad Eggs”, the Scooby Gang is given eggs to take care of. In a Whedonesque twist, there are nasty things inside the eggs which take over the minds of the eggs’ owners. Xander boils his egg for safe-keeping. In unrelated news, a couple of cowboy vampires come into town.

Can you name other examples of the egg-equals-parental-responsibility gimmick?

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How To Advocate For a Threatened TV Show

September 23rd, 2007, 4 Comments »

Plenty of TV shows get canceled. Some of those have an incredibly loyal fanbase who, upon announcement of a show’s impending doom, leap into action to try to rescue the show. This almost never happens, and can be a lot of wasted energy. After all, it’s only a TV show. Popular examples include Jericho, Firefly and My So-Called Life.

Jericho is a rare, partial exception to the ‘dead show walking’ syndrome. From Wikipedia:

However, after a grassroots campaign to revive the series, CBS officially announced on June 6, 2007 that it had purchased seven new episodes of Jericho for broadcast as a midseason replacement.

This is the fifth time the network has resuscitated a cancelled series due to viewer demand. Fans of Cagney and Lacey, Designing Women, The Magnificent Seven and Touched by an Angel all were successful in convincing CBS to bring the shows back after their respective cancellations were announced.

Interestingly, three of those series would have 18 to 50 year-old women as their core audience–they’re traditionally the most powerful grassroots organizers.

Anyhow, that’s a long-winded introduction to this article (which could do with some subheadings), which discusses the rejuvenation of Jericho and the unfortunate, premature demise of Veronica Mars. As you’d expect, fans are in a tizzy.

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