Previewing Expecting Amish: A Dude's Review of Lifetime vol. VII

I can be stubborn, stuck in my ways, and fear change but no one is more stubborn than the Amish who shun fancy things like electricity. Now I have to admit the about ninety percent of what I know about their culture I learned from “Weird Al” Yankovic. Then the other ten percent was half an episode of Amish in the City which probably not the best representation. As the latest Lifetime Movie, I am not sure if Expecting Amish is a better representation of the culture.

One of the aspects of the Amish life I learned about Amish in the City was a rite of passage Amish young adults take where they live in the modern world and after a month they decide if they want to come back and be baptized in the church or stay in modern civilization and be shunned (which was the basis of the show). It has a name, but it long and weird and I am too lazy to look up the correct spelling so let us just call it Amish Spring Break.

Amish Spring Break is the basis of Expecting Amish where AJ Michalka (Cow Belles) and her three Amish buddies go to Los Angeles where they are amazed by self closing car doors and toaster ovens. They are so naïve they are even enamored by One Republic, just wait until they get to hear some real music like The Clash. How the Amish are able to afford such a swanky LA pad goes unexplained, but I guess when you are not spending all your money on disposable income on iPads, Playstations, or even groceries because you grow and kill your own food, it is easier to save a nest egg.

Then the Amish go to a college party to party like it’s 1699 with the “faithless” including Jesse McCartney (Beautiful Soul). Since this is a Lifetime Movie, it from there can go one of two ways: they can be roofied and taken advantage of or fall in love with a modern boy who teaches her there is more to the modern world than toasters and computers. (Granted the ultimate Lifetime Movie, both would end up happening.) But with a title like Expecting Amish, the result of the trip to Los Angeles is fairly obvious. Then, of course, hilarity ensues (well depending if you take Lifetime movies serious or watch them semi-ironically).

Expecting Amish premieres Saturday at 8:00 on Lifetime. Two more Lifetime movies premiering this month includes Guilty at 17 premiering on Sunday at 7:00. It is a thriller starring Erin Sanders who co-stars on Melissa and Joey. She plays 17 year old Traci, who falsely accuses a teacher of sexually harassing another student. When the teacher commits suicide and Traci finds out the teacher was really innocent, she confides in a substitute teacher who places both of them in danger when she takes matters into her own hands. Also there is The Chocking Game premieres on Saturday, July 26 at 8:00. Based on the YA novel called Choke by Diana Lopez, Freya Tingley (Jersey Boys), Peri Gilpin (Frasier) and Alexandra Steele (De Grassi) star in the drama that follows a teenager who flirts with disaster after being introduced to the "game" of intentionally cutting off oxygen to the brain to get high.