An emotional rollercoaster: One Born Every Minute.
OUR PICK
One Born Every Minute
Ten, Tuesday 8.30pm
When the UK series One Born Every Minute first aired in 2010, broadcast television was already saturated with every imaginable permutation of “reality” programming. Surely a less salacious series, about having babies, no less, couldn’t compete in a genre made famous by the titillation and cat-fighting of Big Brother a decade earlier.
But the “fixed rig” multi-camera series fast became one of reality TV’s most successful programs, regularly attracting more than five million viewers in its early series, and winning critical acclaim and numerous BAFTA awards (earlier this year it was axed, but only after an astonishing 11 series).
As opposed to old-school documentaries that used two or three cameras – and took up considerable room, not something you want in a busy hospital – fixed-rig cameras offer multiple viewpoints and can be affixed in nooks and crannies to record multiple people and places at once.
The format – an observational docu-series set in a maternity ward – was sold to several countries, and now Australia finally has its own version.
Filmed over eight weeks at Westmead Hospital in Sydney’s west, in NSW’s busiest birthing unit – chosen as much for the fact that more than 5000 babies are born there every year as for its diversity of patients – the series aims to capture the drama of the first-time mums, the nervous dads, the busy midwives and the unflappable nurses in the neonatal ward.
While the series uses footage from more than 60 cameras, One Born Every Minute feels a world away from what we’ve come to expect from reality TV; there’s no need for any manufacturing of drama in a labour ward. And even though there’s literally a baby born every minute, no two births, as the midwives here will attest, are the same.
The series also has a distinct lack of the kind of self-consciousness that ruins many a reality TV concept – nobody here is worried about how their hair looks, or slyly glancing at the camera. There might be a hell of a lot of cameras, but worrying about them is the furthest thing from the minds of everybody we see here. It’s hard to think of a place where you’d find people acting any less awkwardly than a labour ward.
Each week we meet two or three couples as they come in to the ward. We learn their back stories: how they met, when they got married, about their other kids if they have them – sometimes even their conception stories. And, of course, their best-laid plans for the impending birth. Add to this the heightened drama, anxieties and emotions that go with childbirth and it’s instantly compelling drama. Plus cute babies! But as One Born Every Minute is a rollercoaster, like those actually giving birth, there are several emotions viewers will traverse before the cuddly, gurgling baby part – including some very graphic footage.
Tonight Elise and Grant come in prepared to deliver their baby as breech (that’s feet first), despite the advice of their obstetrician, Liam and Sarah are looking forward to the birth of their second son after a complicated pregnancy with their first son Parker, who has a congenital muscle disorder, and Gen and Grant, also having their second baby, face some tough decisions during Gen’s lengthy, and difficult labour. Tissues recommended – for happy crying, I promise.
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