Screenhead

So the folks out at TLC shipped me a copy of 18 Kids and Counting, Season 2, and it’s alternately one of the most horrifying and enlightening concepts I’ve seen in a good while.

Yes, I know–the title pretty much gives away the horror and the enlightenment all in one convenient package.  The Duggar family is a wide brood of, now, eighteen children.  The eighteenth was in utero at the time of filming, so it was really only a matter of time, and that’s sort of why they call it “and counting”.

18 Kids and Counting is a story all about a family that’s nothing short of massive.  They even have their own politics–extremely conservative.  So conservative, in fact, that television is virtually inaccessible, the internet only slightly less inaccessible, and the children are all home schooled by mother Michelle.

Of course, there are lots of people who disagree with the show on one level or another–phrases like “irresponsibly large number of children”, “psychopathically conservative”, “stifling environment” come up (my personal favorite involves the phrase “clown car”, but I cant go too much farther than that without being not safe for work).

Watching the elder Duggar children try to deal with a waiter who happened to be a tantric dancer proved to be very, VERY awkward, and you get the feeling that the Duggars would be wildly out of place pretty much anywhere that didn’t feature a pulpit or a hymn sing.  Michelle’s attempt at an explanation as to why they won’t celebrate Halloween, for example, is almost terrifying in itself.  I got the very distinct feeling that she longed to launch into a rampaging tirade about demons and all of Satan’s works but was somehow restrained–by what, I don’t know.  But regardless of this serious awkwardness, you get to see what life is like for this collective on a regular basis.

You’ll also get interesting notes, presented in infonugget or “pop-up video” style, about what you’re seeing at the time.  For instance, you’ll discover how many hours were spent on the eldest Duggar son’s wedding.  Or that Jim Bob, Duggar patriarch, goes through two cans of hair spray every month.

Again, this is one of those incredible niche products from TLC–if you have no interest in gigantic conservative families that look like they’re about to burst into flame or vomit in utter revulsion every time they go somewhere, then you won’t really get any joy in seeing the adventures of the  Duggars.  But if you’re all about gigantic conservative families, well, then you’ll love 18 Kids and Counting.

The Screenhead Ten Scale realizes that this niche product is really, REALLY, niche and thus hands it a six out of ten for doing what it does very well, but probably having only limited interest to most of its potential audience.  This is a series that, by necessity, preaches only to the choir.

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