• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 6, 2025

TLC seems particularly busy lately, announcing some new shows that take the channel in familiar directions and at least one new show that does not.

The latest announcement, which came earlier this week, is “Jay & Pamela,” scheduled to premiere March 4.

The show depicts the lives of Jay Manuel, 28, and Pamela Chavez, 30, Georgia residents who met online and formed a bond around a condition they share called Osteogenesis Imperfecta Type 3.

OI “represents a group of rare connective tissue disorders characterized by excessive bone fragility,” says the National Institutes of Health.

“Type 3 is a rare form with new mutations; osteopenia and bone fragility are significant with numerous fractures, continuous and severe deformity of the spine,” NIH says.

TLC says Jay and Pamela -- both 3’4” tall -- have had more than 200 bone fractures throughout their lives (although a press release does not make clear whether each of them had 200 fractures or they had 200 between the two of them).

In addition, many OI patients do not survive to adulthood due to complications tangentially related to their condition.

Needless to say, Jay and Pamela face challenges that few of us can imagine. But through it all, the plucky pair remain upbeat as they focus on the future.

In a nutshell, that is the way many of these kinds of TLC shows have been positioned over the years. 

Despite the physical, emotional and societal challenges faced through the years by TLC’s dwarf families, morbidly obese food addicts, hoarders, the exceptionally tall and even a bearded lady, these subjects are shown also to have lives not unlike our own.

“With plans to marry and a goal to live more independently, Jay and Pamela [pictured above] navigate the world in their motorized wheelchairs, determined to build the life of their dreams together,” says TLC.

Though the details are far different, the life of a young woman with Tourette syndrome shares the same theme as “Jay & Pamela” and its TLC antecedents.

On the show, West Virginian Baylen Dupree, 22, puts her life with Tourette’s on TV for all the world to share the ups and downs of this affliction characterized by uncontrollable vocal and motor tics.

Her show, “Baylen Out Loud,” was announced in December and premiered January 13.

Last week, as noted in the TV Blog earlier this week, TLC announced “Big Family, Big City,” about a family with 11 musically talented children facing the challenge of living in New York City. Similar shows about over-sized families have long been staples for TLC.

With these new shows, TLC seems to be hearkening back to the era when so many of its shows centered on people with unusual physical characteristics and living situations.

More recently, the highest-profile content on TLC has been the sprawling “90-Day Fiancé” franchise, and “Sister Wives” about a polygamous household and the drama of its break-up.

The other new TLC show, for which a February 23 airdate was announced last week, is “The Baldwins,” the long-awaited family reality show built around Alec Baldwin, wife Hilaria and their seven children.

At first glance, some might conclude that the show qualifies as another big-family show, but with a big difference. 

This one happens to star an A-list movie star who made headlines for a tragic on-set shooting incident.

As such, TLC is plowing new ground with “The Baldwins,” while also going back to the tried-and-true content that established the TLC brand in the years since it jettisoned its original name, The Learning Channel. Remember that?