"Baby Borrowers" - Where's Child Protective Services when you need them?

I actually posted this a while back, but since the show's airing tonight, I offer it again:

"Baby Borrowers" is the show that dares to ask the provocative question: Are today's teenagers psychologically capable of the demands of parenthood? Really, NBC? Really? This is your idea of primetime broadcast entertainment?

NBC must have asked itself that same question: The show was originally scheduled to premiere today (Feb. 18); instead, the even less-promising-sounding "My Dad is Better than Your Dad" will debut instead.

"Baby Borrowers" follows five teenage couples (all over 18, so they're legal, lest you cavil over underage booty calls; some couples in the British version were under 18, however) as they experience, utterly unprepared, the rigors of parenthood. So basically, the show will expose to America the only people who might be worse parents than Britney Spears.

The show begins with the requisite hyperbolic narration: "On this quiet cul de sac in a small American town, a groundbreaking experiment is about to take place, one that will change the lives of its participants - forever."

That "small American town" was in Idaho, which has lax child-labor laws. (Like the New Mexico legislature, which got duped by "Kid Nation," Idaho is considering making their laws more stringent.) Additionally, NBC didn't pay anyone, so, hence, no "labor." So they can keep children on camera for longer than ordinary labor laws for TV productions. What kind of idiot would allow NBC to make money off of their efforts (or their putting their child in harm's way) for free?

First, the couples deal with infants 6 months old or so, then toddlers, then pre-teens and their siblings, then teenagers just like themselves. None of it seems particularly well-conceived in terms of being a "groundbreaking experiment," but having teens try to parent teens is particularly idiotic: By the times a parent is dealing with a teen, s/he'll simply by aging have a lot more wisdom and understanding and won't be mistaken for a peer to bully.

"And," the narration continues, "just when they think their experiment is at an end, they'll have to take care of the elderly." Is America ready to accept the changing of adult diapers as entertainment?

Of course, most of the couples selected have at least one drama queen in place to make it all about themselves and not the kids. Kelly, who's dating Austin, melts down before the kids even arrive - the women are asked to wear devices that simulate pregnancy, and Austin laughs as she puts it on. "How can you laugh at me?" she demands petulantly. "Don't touch me!" Uh, Kelly, did it occur to you that maybe he was just laughing at the contraption, or the idea of the contraption, or laughing in a more meta sense at the nature of what this show considers drama or verisimilitude?

Run, Austin! Run! As far as you can get!

Alicea, of the beloved duo Cory and Alicea, gets all p!ssy when the mother of the baby she's caring for comes to explain to her that you don't just try to feed a baby for a few minutes then give up when it doesn't cooperate. "I'm not going to take care of it anymore, because of the mom," she kvetches. "I don't want to have anything to do with it." "It."

Run, Cory! Run! As far as your feet can take you!

Then there's Sean of Sean and Kelsey; she wants children but he's not so sure. But he demonstrates a working knowledge of the Machiavellian machinations of reality TV when he reveals that he's only doing the show because he thinks it'll convince his g.f. that babies are a blight upon society.

Run, Kelsey! Run! As far as your fertile womb can go! But then, Kelsey is bewildered when the baby responds to bad-dad Sean more than to her.

The rest of the first episode is given over to the usual reality-show tedium: That big shopping-for-baby-food expedition, the crying-baby montage, the generic conflicts.

Run, Viewer! Run! There must be a "Law & Order" rerun on somewhere!

- "Baby Borrowers:" 8 tonight (7 Central); NBC (Channel 4).