TV Fiends - A TV Blog devoted to feeding your addiction of all things television.

Yesterday we made a prediction about the Secret Life of the American Teenager spring season wedding event. We said that Adrian and Ben would not get married, Ricky and Amy would and we would get to say told you so today. When the wedding episode started out and Ben and Adrian expressed doubts about getting married we started to get ready for our victory lap. Then Ben and Adrian got married and now we will admit that we were wrong.

There is no reason you all should turn to us now for our prediction about next week’s episode. There is probably no reason we should even make a prediction. Despite this we are going to make another prediction for what ABC Family is calling the ”most dramatic Secret Life of the American Teenager episode yet.”

This time though we are not going to say told you so when our prediction comes true. We are not going to rejoice because we suspect that Secret Life of the American Teenager is heading down a path that we hope that no series actually goes down. A path where pregnancies are designed for ratings and writers can choose to “reset” before it goes “too far.”

See our recap of season 3 of Secret Life of the American Teenager here

**** Possible Spoiler Alert********

Will Adrian die during the ”most dramatic Secret Life of the American Teenager episode yet?”

Last night’s episode ended with a preview for next week’s season finale that showed Adrian checking into the hospital and that features Ben, Ben’s father Leo and many of the teen characters of Secret Life crying many fans started to speculate whether Adrian would die during the ”most dramatic Secret Life of the American Teenager episode yet.”

So we had to ask ourselves is it true? Will Adrian die during next week’s Secret Life of the American Teenager?

We’ve pondered it over and after much thought we feel confident in our answer.

Our prediction to the will Adrian die during next week’s episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager: No.

Adrian will not die during next week’s Secret Life of the American Teenager.

So if Adrian is not dying during next week’s episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager what is everyone crying about?

What happens to Adrian during the ”most dramatic Secret Life of the American Teenager episode yet?”

Our second prediction for next week’s episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager is that Adrian will survive but her baby will not.  We believe that Adrian will not die during the Secret Life but she will lose the baby.

What made us come to this conclusion? What makes us so confident that Adrian will not die during next week’s Secret Life but will instead lose her baby? Our knowledge of TV history when it comes to pregnancy plots.

Adrian’s pregnancy plot designed for ratings

In the world of television miscarriages and the loss of a baby are common, especially among young women. As Jezebel and TVTropes explain, unsuccessful pregnancy plots allows TV writers to have all the drama associated with pregnancy but none of the fall out associated with having a baby or an abortion.

Most writers stop the pregnancy in the early stages, which is why TVTrope labels the phenomena as a “convenient miscarriage.” Why did Secret Life decide to continue the story past the point of miscarriage? So they could feature as many episodes as possible with Adrian’s pregnancy in order to  have  a season finale shocker that would suck viewers and get press just in time for the summer season.

The writers new that it would be too cliché to stick with the “convenient miscarriage” plot and would not create the drama they needed. Having Adrian’s pregnancy go on this long allowed the writers to “shake things up” without having to incorporate another baby into the series. It also allows them to escape the criticism that many writers face when they opt for a traditional “convenient miscarriage.”

Series like Secret Life of the American Teenager thrive on being controversial. In the first season they relied on Amy’s pregnancy for drama. Season two they brought in Molly Ringwald’s character, Anne, to run the pregnancy plot kept their audience entertained by having Adrian get pregnant. Secret Life believes that they must feature teen pregnancies to stay relevant in a 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom world.

From he moment we learned that Adrian was pregnant we knew that her pregnancy would end in tragedy. We knew Secret Life of the American Teenager would not be so bold as to have Adrian have an abortion as that would be going “too far.” As much as Secret Life promotes the idea that abortion is an option it has never fully committed to telling that story.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager writers knew from the start that the teenage mom plot, unlike the teenage pregnancy plot, would get too redundant for their audience. Secret Life is more about sex, lies, gossip and high school drama then about the plight of a teenage mother.

The Convenient Ending

For the writers of Secret Life Adrian losing the baby is a convenient ending. The writers get to move on from this plot without a scratch.

They get the ratings they wanted by having Adrian pregnant, they got to play both sides of the pro-choice and pro-life debate by having Adrian briefly consider and yet quickly reject abortion, they get to shock the audience by having Adrian lose the baby, which will hook the audience for another season and the writers don’t have to change the plot significantly next year to incorporate Adrian’s kid.

Adrian can go back to wanting Ricky, Ben can now go back to trying to win over Amy and everyone will feel sorry for Adrian, which is better than the alternative where they turn on Adrian when she has an abortion.

We’ve seen this “everybody wins” plot before. That is why we are 100% certain in our prediction that Adrian will not die during next week’s episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager and are confident when we say that her unborn child will not survive.

We are just sad to see that yet another series is heading down this road just for the sake of ratings. We are sad the series used Adrian’s pregnancy in this way and we are sad that the “convenient miscarriage” still has a place in our culture and that the writers of Secret Life of American Teenager is taking that plot a step further by having Adrian go a full term just so they could have an explosive episode.