Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Adults Adopting Adults’ On A&E, A Reality Series About Adult Adoption That’s As Weird As It Sounds

Adults Adopting Adults is a ten-part reality series about, well, adults adopting adults. Yep, adult adoption is a real thing, and this series follows six groups who are “expanding their families” by legally adopting adults. Yep, it’s as strange as it sounds.

ADULTS ADOPTING ADULTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: At the beginning of a first-season montage, we see a man drawing on a “Welcome to our family” poster, telling his wife, “Did you ever think we’d adopt a grown woman?”

The Gist: Three of the six groups are followed in the first episode, and all of the situations are different. In Ohio, Danny and Christy are adopting Ileana, a pregnant 20-year-old woman from Austria. The couple never had kids — though they have lots of cats — and Danny found Ileana in a Facebook adult adoption group. He claims to have never broached the topic of coming to the U.S., but Christy — and those around her — are completely skeptical of his motivations, mainly because he’s cheated on her before. To say Danny is controlling is an understatement, as he prods Christy to hurry so they can leave for the airport, after fearing that they were ghosted.

In Las Vegas, Kim, a married mother of two, is being adopted by an older couple, Vickie and Joe, that she found on social media. Essentially, she wants grandparents for her kids, given her nonexistent relationship with both her mother and in-laws. But a few things are complicating this relationship: Kim and her husband make far more money than Vickie and Joe, and the older couple’s friends are wondering if the younger couple is just looking for babysitters. The other problem? Kim’s mother, who adopted her from Korea when Kim was a baby, is suddenly back in her life, after the two stopped speaking eight years ago.

In New York state, Derek and Carol are adopting 23-year-old Bianca, whom Carol got to know at the SUNY school where she worked and where Bianca attended. Bianca was in the foster system her whole life, so the stability of Derek and Carol is what she’s been seeking. But there are complications here, too; a previous marriage Carol was in fell apart when she found that her husband was cheating on her with another student that she took in. Derek’s mother doesn’t trust Bianca at all, and Carol’s stepdaughter has stopped speaking to Carol because she thinks Bianca is just there to sponge off the couple.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In a lot of ways, the format of Adults Adopting Adults echoes 90 Day Fiancé,  with a lot of the same segments where family and friends are wondering just what in the hell the person is thinking, given how nutty it is to be adult adoptees or adopting adults.

Our Take: Here’s what grates the hell out of us about shows like Adults Adopting Adults: The producers of this show aren’t trying to give any kind of serious examination of just why adult adoption exists and why people decide to legally adopt an adult and why adults seek being adopted. The producers just want to see the uncomfortable reactions by friends and loved ones, including spouses. In fact, the more uncomfortable a spouse is, the better. And boy, do we have some uncomfortable spouses in the first episode.

When a producer asks Kim if she’s seeking being adopted to get back at her mother, she says no, but Joe’s “the hell you aren’t” look says otherwise. Christy has no desire to have Ileana in their lives, going as far as spending over $5000 for a camper trailer that Ileana can live in, separate from their house. Carol and Derek seem to be on the same page about Bianca, but the producers seem to be editing in a bit of sexual tension between Bianca and Derek, even if it’s not really there.

It leads to audiences who would rather gawk and point and feel satisfied that they’re leading better lives than the people on TV than actually examine the issue. Never mind that, at least in the case of Christy and Danny, their marriage was on the precipice of falling apart before Ileana came along; the producers are gleefully watching as the marriage wrecks itself on the rocks of Danny’s narcissism.

The other three situations don’t feel like they’re much different. In one, a son of two elderly parents wonder why they’re adopting a random woman who has come into their lives, and an elderly German prince wants to adopt a young man to become his heir, even though he treats the guy like a servant.

Maybe we’re expecting too much, but there’s just too much of a temptation on shows like this to show the most extreme cases that make for “good TV’ instead of actually explaining why people would go through the hoops of something like adult adoption. Maybe one day someone can make a real documentary about the topic to make people understand just why it exists and real reasons why people do it.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Danny wants Christy to tell Ileana about the problems they’ve had in their marriage and Christy, understandably, walks out in tears, not wanting to dump that baggage on the young woman.

Sleeper Star: None. Seriously. We did feel really badly for Christy through most of the episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: Bianca admits there are two sides of her, one that’s the achieving student who’s career-oriented and one that has a lot of her home borough of the Bronx in her. That seems to be some pretty obvious foreshadowing, doesn’t it?

Our Call: SKIP IT. More than most shows of this type, it feels like Adults Adopting Adults has no interest in anything but weirdness and dysfunction. And it’s just uncomfortable to watch.

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.

Stream Adults Adopting Adults On AETV.com