Switched at Birth

As a kid I enjoyed the golden age of The WB, with the incomparable Dawson's Creek, the eternally endearing Gilmore Girls, and occasionally, when it wasn't too imposing, a little 7th Heaven. You could call it 'family entertainment' but it was aimed primarily at moody teenagers, and to a pre-teen like me, it seemed astoundingly mature. The height of adulthood. I was enthralled.

Today, The WB is gone. Its formal successor is The CW, but the programming on that network errs almost exclusively towards the supernatural end of the WB/UPN spectrum. Shows such as The Vampire Diaries and The Originals are quite good, but you don't see the same down to Earth, daily life sensibilities that informed the WB's best work.

Another channel has stepped in to pick up where the WB left off, a channel that for years subsisted on syndicating programs including Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls. It's almost strange to imagine a TV network operating with such a clear logical, linear progression (since market turmoil tends to necessitate more haphazard evolutions), but all those years spent accentuating the WB's best must have given them a rather keen understanding of the classic WB mentality.

ABC Family has become the true, irrevocable heir to the WB aesthetic. They're hit and miss like every network is, but if you're looking for the quirky homeliness and the warm-hearted sentimentality of old WB, ABC Family is your destination. And so far their best show is Switched at Birth, the story of two girls and their two families, who didn't discover that a baby switch had occurred until 16 years after the fact. It is an astoundingly well done show, that never ceases to yield at a very high quality. It has to be the best family drama since Gilmore Girls.

Genuinely Unique

I'm about to go on a minor rant, but the best way to explain Switched at Birth's strengths is to contrast it with one of ABC Family's lesser shows. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to the debut of The Fosters. Adoption AND LGBT themes? These are specifically my two most sought-after story aspects for family dramas.

But the show didn't turn out so great. The Fosters tries *so damn hard* to be diverse and innovative. But unfortunately what you get with The Fosters is most of the same characters and plots you've already watched on other TV shows. Trust me, there's absolutely nothing I am more desperate for than a great LGBT show on ABC Family. But The Fosters panders more so than emotes, and the barriers it purports to break have largely been breached before. If it opens even one set of eyes to the validity of gay adoption then that's a service rendered to the whole human race. But is it a good, well-written drama show, on an entertainment level? No, it's merely decent.

Switched at Birth, on the other hand, makes being unique in a sea of TV copycats appear virtually effortless. Sure we've dealt with certain themes before, like class warfare and student protest. But we're treated to these themes in new ways thanks to this nuanced premise. The titular switched at birth angle gives us a far more innately introspective and intimately conflicted look at the discrepancy between social classes than similar family drama treatments.

Allow me to elaborate. Our two girls from opposite socioeconomic backgrounds struggle not just with their understanding of conflicting social ideologies and the revelation of class warfare, as many coming of age stories address; they also struggle with how these two opposed ideologies are simultaneously inherent to who they are, due to the girls' dual nature between their birth parents and the parents who raised them. This issue is usually dealt with as a simple arc, from ignorance to understanding. But for Switched at Birth, our protagonists are adamant about retaining both aspects of their self.

Furthermore, the recurring emphasis on deaf culture and deaf issues gives a voice to a group that has almost no representation in mainstream media. And the framing of the classic 'student sit-in' plotline through the lens of deaf students trying to save their one haven from the world of the hearing majority, allows the show to raise awareness about a defining moment in deaf history which most viewers are not going to be familiar with (the Deaf President Now protests at Gallaudet University), as well as bringing in a bit of new depth to the old formula.

Keeps Me Guessing

Yes, I'd certainly be lying if I said Switch at Birth doesn't tread on *any* ground we haven't seen plenty of times before. Like nearly all works in television and film, it rests on some old standards when need be. But the special thing about Switched at Birth is that even when they're redoing a classic standard, they still keep me on my toes.

For example in one storyline, one daughter befriends a political activist who is opposed to her father's work as a state Senator. And of course, she accidentally reveals sensitive information the senator hiding from the public. We know how this goes, right? The boyfriend is going to release the information, after a fight or a breakup, or because the political stakes are too high. But, no, Switched at Birth doesn't go that route. They actually don't make that into a plot thread at all, the Senator himself makes the information public later in that same episode, under no duress or conflict.

Not every trope is subverted here, but there are just enough subversions to make sure the audience can't confidently predict the plotlines, because you don't know when they're going to go the traditional route, and when they're not.

Switched at Birth has impressed me virtually with every new episode. I'd say it's definitively proven itself as the third best family-drama, behind Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls. But Switched at Birth isn't over yet, could it get even better? I wouldn't be surprised.

Best episode so far? The alternate reality episode where they had found out about the switch much sooner. Daphne the altruist became a spoiled socialite growing up rich instead of seeing poverty up close, while wild child Bay became a shy bookworm, internalizing her artistic side after having to live in Daphne's shadow. It was heartbreaking, it was illuminating, it was clever as hell and it was fucking awesome. What's next?