Right now, I'm watching the Hayes family of TLC's Table for 12 chat with Regis and Kelly. It's not the first time we've seen them lately; since the second season of their show premiered, they've been all over the talk landscape.We're definitely seeing them a lot more than when the show's first season debuted; in fact, TLC seemed to premiere the story of the Hayeses, who have two sets of twins and a set of sextuplets, on the QT last March. The relatively soft launch was a bit of a mystery to me, given the network's love of multiples. I mean, these guys had Jon and Kate beat by a mile, right?
But now that I look back at it, there were two things keeping TLC from really pushing the Hayes family back then: 1) Betty and Eric Hayes actually liked each other (read: they're boringly happy) and 2) Jon and Kate were still a couple. Now that J&K have exploded into a toxic tabloid mess, TLC needed someone to promote, and the Hayes' relative happiness seemed to be the perfect antidote.
But what TLC may not have bargained for is that the Hayeses are just too nice to be a big hit. The reason why a lot of people tuned into Jon and Kate Plus 8, even during the couple's seemingly "happy" times, wasn't the cute moppets running around the Gosselin residence. No, it was J&K's edginess, the notion that taking care of these kids would eventually make one or both of them snap.
Even during the happy times, Jon looked like he had that "what did I get myself into?" face on him at all times, and Kate yelled at Jon like he was her ninth child. So, even though the sheer ugliness of J&K's split couldn't have been predicted, the split itself wasn't that big of a surprise, especially to that gleefully rubbernecking segment of the audience (which included me... might as well come clean here).
But the Hayeses aren't like that. Betty and Eric may get tired from time to time, but they both seem to enjoy being parents and being with each other. Where's the fun in that? The first season bored me to tears because that edginess was missing; I'd imagine the second season won't be any more interesting.
Is TLC putting their big family eggs in too boring of a basket? Let me know in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2009 @ 11:29AM
alk02g said...
I'm a big fan of this show. I saw the premiere and all of the first season. I missed the first two episodes of the second season (didn't realize it was back!), but have caught the others so far. Yes, the parents are kinda "boring," but at the same time it's so nice to see them genuinely trust each other's parenting decisions (especially in comparison to J&K). The kids aren't bratty, and while some of them have a more sever rivalry than others, it's really refreshing to watch them interact. The sextuplets seem so much more like individuals than the Gosselin kids.
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11-16-2009 @ 2:30PM
King Zilch said...
So they're trading one set of attention-whoring breeders for another? Pass.
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