Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bump’ On The CW, An Australian Dramedy About An Overachieving Teen Dealing With A Surprise Baby

Teen pregnancy is a topic that seems to be more of the realm of reality shows instead of scripted shows. Usually in scripted shows the young mother is a supporting character or one that is portrayed as having made obviously bad life choices. But a hit Aussie import, airing in its second season Down Under but debuting its first season on The CW in the States, shows what the reality is.

BUMP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Shots of a seaside town in Australia. A teen girl is in her room, typing on her laptop. She’s wearing a “High School Physics Olympiad” shirt, and we see a number of awards around her room.

The Gist: Olympia ‘Oly’ Chalmers-Davis (Nathalie Morris) is an overachieving high school junior who more than likely has OCD; she has to go down a certain number of stairs to set her day right, for instance. She walks in on her mother Angie (Claudia Karvan) dancing in her underwear to some Latin music and the only person that’s mortified is Oly. When Oly can’t find an old stuffie that she wants to use as a “transitional object” to help her with a big presentation at school, she finds out her father Dom (Angus Sampson) is sleeping on his boat and won’t be able to drive her in.

She goes in with Angie, who works at the school but wanted to work from home that day. She meets up with her bestie Reema (Safia Arain) and complains about how unreasonable Angie is; she also gets a pep talk from her boyfriend, Lachie Koh (Peter Thurnwald). But intense cramps and nausea send her to the bathroom, and she’s feeling so bad an ambulance is called. Both Oly and Angie are shocked when a paramedic tells Oly that she’s about to give birth.

This, of course, doesn’t fit into Oly’s life plan, so she immediately tells her parents and the hospital social worker that “I’m not keeping it.” But she’ll still have to take care of her for 30 days before placing her for adoption. Reema finds out about the baby through the school grapevine, and when Lachie gets to the hospital, he already knows that he’s not the father, since they made a pact to wait. So he’s disheartened to know that she had a one-off with “someone you don’t know.”

But it turns out that it’s someone he does know: Santiago ‘Santi’ Hernández (Carlos Sanson, Jr.), a jock who is the son of Matias (Ricardo Scheihing Vásquez), the soccer coach who is carrying on a flirtation with Angie.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Bump almost feels like we’re looking at the story of Gilmore Girls‘ Lorelai when she had Rory while still in high school.

Our Take: Created by Karvan and Kelsey Munro, Bump sets up a scenario that seems like something we’ve seen before, but in reality it’s rare: A smart teenage girl, who seems to have her post-high school life planned out to a minute stage, is upended by getting pregnant. The idea that Oly’s pregnancy was unknown to her all the way up to giving birth — she blamed her weight gain on stress and didn’t seem to give any mind to her lack of periods — adds a bit more of an element of surprise.

Morris inhabits Oly’s roiling combo of teenage condescension, high intelligence and need for life to be ordered and predictable, and watching Oly navigate a situation that would be disruptive for anyone much less someone like her will be the key to the series.

But Karvan and Munro have built quite an interesting world around Oly, and that is established well in the first two episodes. You’ve got Angie and Cam, whose marriage went south years ago but they still hung on; will being new grandparents bring them together or drive them apart? Then there’s Santiago, who actually wants to be involved in his daughter’s life; at what point will Oly let him in, and how will that affect her relationship with Lachie?

All of those questions are intriguing enough to keep us watching, as is Angie’s burgeoning relationship with Matias and how that may complicate things with Oly. It turns a story about an accidental teen pregnancy into one about a girl who is so used to being in control needing to readjust and give up some of that control, but with a support system that is dysfunctional but willing to help.

Sex and Skin: There’s some implied sex, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: In the middle of the night, Oly hears the baby being a bit restless. She goes over to the bassinet, puts out her finger, and the baby wraps her hand around it.

Sleeper Star: Angus Sampson plays Dom’s manchild tendencies to perfection, but he seems to have enough going on to be there for Oly when she needs it.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Angie tells Dom that the baby has ruined her life along with Oly’s, he’s surprised. “Who do you think is going to take care of this baby?” she asks him. “She’s just a child! Babies having babies!” Oly is 17, not a baby, and she’s smart. Maybe Angie should give her more credit than that.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Bump treats the teen pregnancy as an extreme life change, but not one that’s either tragic or punishment for “bad behavior.” It treats Oly’s surprise pregnancy as a fact of this girl’s life, and it will be interesting to find out how she manages being a mother and an overachieving student.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.