Babies have long been a staple of television, but these shows are handling pregnancy and childbirth in new ways.
AMC, FX
Justified has justly drawn praise for being a groundbreaking show, from its crackling dialogue to its nuanced depiction of the rural south—a setting typically underutilized on television. But the third season of Justified does follow one TV tradition: It looks like it's going to feature a "new baby" episode.
There's a history of "new baby" episodes on television that stretches back more than five decades. I Love Lucy grabbed headlines (and ratings) in 1953 when Lucille Ball's real-life pregnancy was written into the show. "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" was viewed by 44 million Americans; the presidential inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower, which aired the following day, drew only 29 million viewers . Though the increasingly fragmented television audience means we're not likely to see a success on that scale again, "new baby" episodes can still sometimes be a draw—when The Office aired the 2-part episode "The Delivery," in which Jim and Pam have a baby, the series beat its timeslot rival Grey's Anatomy for the first time. But an interesting, divergent trend has emerged in recent TV dramas: a subdued, sometimes all-but-unremarked-upon approach to the birth of a child. AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad have each seen their lead protagonists grappling with new fatherhood—going through the full arc of the experience, from pregnancy to birth—but in a way that hasn't significantly alter the either show's overarching narrative.
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Justified's Raylan is set to join Don Draper and Walter White in the fatherhood department. Last night's generally strong episode, "Cut Ties," is vintage Justified: clever quips, tense shootouts, likable guest stars, and gloriously hammy villain monologues. In the midst of all the action, it's easy to miss the brief reference to Winona's pregnancy. It was discussed, as a matter of course, at the beginning of the episode—but only so that Raylan could get in a couple of good barbs before going off to another dangerous day of marshalling. And that's been Justified's approach to the pregnancy from the start; when Winona told Raylan she was pregnant in last season's finale, she did it as an afterthought, in the morning, in the breezy kind of tone you'd use to tell someone they were out of toothpaste. That blasé approach is partially rooted in character; both Raylan and Winona routinely use understatement and humor as a way to deflect the very serious issues that threaten to upend their lives. But it raises intriguing questions about what will happen to Justified when the nine-month clock hits zero.