'God, Please Don't Let Her Become a Porn Star': Introducing Preachers' Daughters

“The show really feels like a unique look into this world that I think a lot of other people haven’t seen before,” executive producer Adam Reed tells The Hollywood Reporter. “A lot of reality shows nowadays feel overproduced or soft-scripted; in this, you see a lot of true reality playing out.”

But if you’re used to the oft-drug-addled antics on Teen Mom or the raunch of Bad Girls Club, will Preachers’ Daughters provide enough excitement? Maybe not. As Jon Caramanica writes for The New York Times:

[The parent/child] interactions have none of the dark drama found on “Teen Mom” or “16 and Pregnant” – at least not yet.

“Preachers’ Daughters” hinges on the inescapable premise that the more difficult the stars become – say, Ms. Coleman frolicking with a handsy boy while wearing a not-quite-there bathing suit, as she does in the premiere – the more tantalizing this show will become.

But the parents have their arsenals too: Ms. Coleman’s father’s draconian rules; Ms. Perry’s empathetic father’s tears and forgiveness; and Ms. Koloff’s mother’s discomfiting frankness about intimacy (she is also a preacher), repeating phrases like “finger sex” often enough so as to rob them of all erotic power.

From the looks of the trailer, it seems like the tension comes from the parents being strict and inflexible, and the daughters predictably reacting — rebelling — to an oppressive environment. One in which perfectly normal teenage sexual awakening is considered bad. Evil. In fact, sex seems like the only thing these parents are stressing about. Not whether or not their daughters are kind, smart, generous, ambitious. Maybe we’ll see that the parents care about that stuff in the episode; but the trailer lures us in with one father praying, “God please don’t ever let my daughter become a porn star,” as though it were a fate worse than death. Guess sex is what the father — and audiences — really care about.

The Parents of These Teenagers Must Be Tempted to Throw the Good Book at Them [NYT]
‘Preachers’ Daughters’ Exposes a World ‘People Haven’t Seen Before,’ Says EP (Exclusive Video) [THR]
Preachers’ Daughters [Lifetime]