the Scott Stein

A quick look at a list of Aaron Spelling's productions confirms the critics' view that he wasn't making art--he called it "mind candy", they called it "mindless candy"--but his is truly an American success story.

The warm feelings we might associate with his shows probably have a good bit to do with nostalgia. It's hard to argue that many of the shows he produced have lasting value or hold up (suggestions, anyone?), to the extent that this matters. But he gave people what they wanted, and they rewarded him. Good for him if his mansion had an entire floor devoted to closets.


Source: CNN and CNN

We’ve all heard that birth control “sometimes fails.” Of course it sometimes fails (everything does), but every couple I’ve ever known--and I’ve known a few--who “had an accident,” and ended up with a fourth kid, meant by “accident” not that the birth control had failed, but that they’d neglected to use any. “A miscommunication,” they said. Or, “The tequila did it.” Not one said, “The condom ripped.” Which brings us to the location of the greatest concentration of irresponsible doctors ever: television.

I didn’t even watch ER regularly, but even I know that one doctor--the handsome one--got the nurse pregnant, by accident; another doctor--the bald one—got the British doctor pregnant, by accident; another doctor--the rich one--got the AIDS worker pregnant, by accident. My wife tells me that, more recently, two other ER couples--a doctor and an EMT and two doctors (the News Radio one and the foreign one)--also had accidents. So we have ten people on ER--seven doctors, one nurse, an EMT, and an AIDS worker--an AIDS worker--who didn’t practice safe sex or use birth control.

And don’t forget the unexpected pregnancy on the first season of Grey’s Anatomy--the two surgeons apparently hadn’t heard of condoms, or didn’t know how to use them, or weren’t aware of the methods by which a person gets pregnant. Other doctors on the show have so far avoided unintentional conception, though it’s a young show. At the rate these people are sleeping with each other...

Six sets of doctors/nurses/EMTs/AIDS workers capable of performing open-heart surgery but not able to keep from exchanging intimate bodily fluids. I would bet there are others, but mercifully, my knowledge of TV medical dramas ends here.

Five of the pregnancies were on the same show. TV writers need plot devices, we know--and how many helicopters can they have spin tragically out of control at a single hospital? Certainly not more than two. And after you’ve had your doctors addicted to drugs, stabbed to death, die of cancer, convert to lesbianism, you’ve got to do something.