Couples for teens

To judge from the current state of romantic comedy, the modern American couple reproduces first and reconciles to love later — morning sickness before mornings after. This six-part series, which begins on Wednesday, has the cleverest conceit of any reality show in a long time and almost feels necessary. It asks five couples in their late teens, with varying ideas about time frames for marriage and family, to road-test adult life by becoming caregivers — of babies, then toddlers, then older children and the elderly — who rotate in and out of their lives over the course of a few weeks. You may be asking: who lends a baby like a measuring cup? In the show, based on a British concept, the parents monitor their proxies from a central command station, as footage of this exercise in advanced baby-sitting shows the couples feeding and bathing and ignoring their charges. Each gets its own house with wall-to-wall carpeting on a soulless cul-de-sac that seems in itself a potent prophylactic against any fantasies of early-onset homemaking.