I had been holding off on posting a review of Inconceivable. I was giving it the benefit of the doubt, giving it another week or two to redeem itself. Luckily, I didn't have to subject myself to that. NBC seems to have pulled the plug.
I'll review it anyway...
First off, the clinic itself is totally unrealistic. Bigger than life pictures of babies adorn the walls, there seems to be a labor and delivery ward right there, the lab seems to be an unsecured dimly lit space where patients are led through as part of their introductory tour. The opening of the first episode showed a woman pushing a triple stroller through, bragging that the passengers were a result of her first IVF transfer.
In contrast, a real clinic would display no babies (mine has a fun fish tank), no visibly pregnant women, an impeccably sterile lab secured by a variety of locks, and an understanding that babies are not what most IVF patients want to see while they sit in the waiting room. (Though at our last appointment, there was an impossibly adorable baby with his dad in the waiting room... I didn't hold it against them.)
The main "patient" story line dealt with a minister and his 40-something wife who had been through something like five IVF cycles with no success. In a desperate plea to the doctor, the patient asks if they can use donor sperm. Um, honey, you're 40-something. The sperm *ain't* the problem. Of course, the doctor didn't say that. Instead, in the next episode, they bring in a specialist who does something called an cytoplasmic transfer. It's almost like cloning, but not quite. Of course, they make a big deal about this, since it's an illegal procedure, and they don't make the husband sign the consent form. Hello, you can't do a damn thing in an IVF clinic without everybody signing about 83 forms. And if she was so willing to use donor sperm, why didn't they just use donor eggs? Selfish bitch.
There's also a story line of a white couple with a surrogate who gives birth to a black baby! Horror! Turns out she had a fling with some dude before her transfer. Anyway, the intended father goes balistic and ends up killing the clinic's resident shrink. I suppose it *could* happen. Well, at least the first part anyway. Of course, they first blamed the lab for switching embryos. *sigh*
The non-patient story line involved the hot-shot doctor and a nurse, blah blah, jilted lover, "last fling" involves a blow job (sorry sensitive readers!) whose products are deposited in a jumbo-size sperm sample cup, which is promptly switched with... wait for it... the minister's sperm sample! Obviously, the producers didn't do their homework, because if they did, they'd know that saliva kills sperm. (I only know this because I heard a funny story about it from Doctor Friend.)
And main-character Ming-Na is pregnant in real life, so to put her pregnancy into the story line they set her up to be a gestational carrier for her friends. Glad we didn't have to watch the rest of that story.
Besides the story lines being mostly ridiculous, the show was just. bad. There are so many great REAL stories, why did they have to take these extreme edge cases? I personally think our own story is pretty dramatic on its own! It's not that common, but it is very real.
I'm just mad that I missed the first two episodes of NUMB3RS.
