Title: 17 Kids and Counting
Premiere Date: September 29, 2008 (10 and 10:30 p.m. - ET/PT)
Genre: Reality
Rating: TV-PG
Run Time: 30-min. per episode
Creator/Distributor: Figure 8 Films/TLC
With the success of TLC’s popular Jon & Kate Plus 8 series, it was only a matter of time until a bigger family got its own series, too.
Whoa. Bigger than eight kids? In the twenty-first century? That’s right. Despite what the critics of large families have to say, The Duggars believe that every child is a gift to be cherished and so they have grown a family to a size now numbering 19.
Former high school sweethearts, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are now proud parents of 17 "gifts"—ten boys, seven girls and an eighteenth child on the way (due January 1). You’ve probably seen this Arkansas family before, as TLC and Discovery Health Channel have each run documentaries on them in the past. But if you haven’t, then you’ll get an up-close-and-personal introduction in the first two episodes of their new TLC series, 17 Kids and Counting.
Besides screen time with dad and mom, you’ll also meet each child (from the age of 20 down to 1, with an average of 18 mos. between each child): Joshua, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jeremiah, Jedidiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah and baby Jennifer.
It’s mind-boggling to think of how a household with this many children can operate with efficiency and without arguments or hair-pulling every 30 seconds. But somehow in the Duggars’ home, you’ll see that it does.
In episode one, the Duggars are preparing to leave for a Mother’s Day trip to New York City where they will be interviewed on NBC’s The Today Show. The older girls are helping to pack all of the suitcases for the family. And in case you were wondering, that’s 100 shirts, 100 pairs of pants, 40 pairs of shoes and 60 diapers for a three-day trip. “Duggar Facts” like that pop up on-screen regularly throughout 17 Kids and Counting and help the viewer grasp what it takes to run an extraordinary family of this size.
On the day of departure, the kids are hustled out of the house and into the family’s multi-passenger van (the Duggars also own a tour bus which they bought from a hockey team for $75,000). While driving to the airport, Michelle leads in the singing of hymns and gospel music—something she says “is a fun thing for our family to do.”
