Bates 31: When Will They Go Away?

[Coconut Flan]

Continued from here:

 

[Bobology]

@displayname Isaiah is the one Kelly referred to as Eeyore.

The title of this thread? Well, they're not going away yet. I just saw that UP TV has some reruns scheduled at the end of July and early August. That could change, but that's what my guide is showing as of now.

[CanadianMamam]

1 hour ago, Bobology said:

@displayname Isaiah is the one Kelly referred to as Eeyore.

The title of this thread? Well, they're not going away yet. I just saw that UP TV has some reruns scheduled at the end of July and early August. That could change, but that's what my guide is showing as of now.

Didn't they pull the re-runs before they cancelled? Do we think there is a chance they will pick it up again? 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

Wonder if the bombshell they thought was going to break didn't yet so they're going to wait and see.

[ihaveanexamintwodays]

@BeccaGrim from the last thread - I do think Warden kind of looks like Alyssa, he's got darker hair but I actually think he's more angular in the jaw, like Alyssa is. He's also always in FL visiting her, more often than Jackson it seems haha. And he's Trace's fashion twin with the pink and the patterns and whatnot. Isaiah is dark-haired with a round face, the quiet one they called "eeyore" or "cubby" as a kid.

[Marly]

I have to vent, and I'll just do it here in the general bates thread. 
I CAN'T with these people gifting their young children, children who can't take care of themselves yet, animals, LIVING CREATURES that are totally inappropriate for children, especially without proper parental oversight. (and we know that none of these adults know anything about how to properly handle animals.)

I feel so incredibly sad for these poor creatures that will be abused and mistreated and live very short, sad lives. Though I understand that the children will most likely not intentionally harm the pets, (just because the children have no idea how to properly handle an animal BECAUSE THEY ARE CHILDREN, and imho, children that cannot take care of themselves yet should NEVER be given unsuitable pets), the parents should 100% know better and do better.

A chinese hamster????? Those are pets for experienced owners, and hamsters per definition UNSUITABLE for children because 1) they are nocturnal (and tend to bite when forcefully dragged from their hideouts by hands that have not been trained to not squish the animal to death, which also brings me to point 2); 2) they are incredibly small and fragile and children are incredibly clumsy, especially young children; 3) hamsters need a lot of space. The minimum required space for a dwarf hamster (and not a chinese hamster) is 80x50x50cm. A Chinese hamster needs an even bigger cage. The tiny prisons sold by pet stores, which Erin undoubtedly bought for the living creature she gifted her way too young child because anything else would take up space they don't have, are unsuitable. Hamsters on average live between 2-3 years. Hamsters in tiny prisons (un)cared for by children under the age of 10 will likely die of unnatural causes way before the age of 2. 

Fuck all the grown ass adults who refuse to look into proper animal care before getting an animal FOR THEIR FUCKING CHILD who can't even take care of the animal. Animals deserve better.

Then, bunnies??? First of all, bunnies are social animals. They need a companion of their own species. Josie and Kelton could have known this had they taken the time to actually look into the welfare of the animal. (Though, if they actually cared about it's welfare they would have never gifted a bunny to a fucking 3 year old). Second of all: Bunnies are not easy pets. They are comparable to cats and dogs with regards to the amount of care, attention, and stimulation they need. They are also incredibly fragile. Bunnies can live 10+ years, when cared for by experienced owners who actually give a fuck about the welfare of their animals. When stuck in a way to small cage (which both Erin and Josie have, their cages are way too small and completely unsuitable), being fed an unsuitable diet, and being squeezed and hauled and thrown around by children, they rarely make it to 3. 
All the pictures Erin showed in her stories of her children holding a clearly uncomfortable bunny hurt my soul. Those poor, poor creatures. Bunnies are very unsuitable pets for kids, especially without proper parental guidance.

And I want to emphasize here, I don't mind children growing up with pets, or children being given care tasks for those pets. However, as long as children are unable to take care of themselves, it should be obvious that they shouldn't be the sole caregiver of another living creature. There needs to be parental oversight and guidance.
My brother and SIL have a dog, and they teach my 1yo niece how to pet her, to not hit her, not to pull on her hair etc. Seeing that the Bates don't even care about human lives (unless in the womb), I highly doubt that they provide any guidance to their children with regards to how to properly care for their pets.

It hurts me to see and to know. I had to take a break from the Erin and Chad thread when they gave their children bunnies. Not because it was discussed at length in the thread, but because seeing the pictures of the children manhandling the bunny brought me to tears. I stopped reading completely after they gifted 3 of 5 a Chinese hamster. I have two hamsters, both rescues, and that hit too close to home.

I'm sorry for this long post, but this has been bothering me for a while now, and J+K gifting their 3 year old a bunny was the straw that broke this camel's back.

[Zebedee]

4 hours ago, Marly said:

A chinese hamster

Yep, it drives me nuts when I see people getting hamsters for their kids for the most part. Hamsters are not kid-friendly pets, and just because they are small, it does not mean they only need small houses. Pet stores are absolutely complicit in animal abuse, with their tiny wheels and cages. I had many hamsters in the 90s, and I am wracked with guilt about their lives- we stupidly assumed that pet stores sold the correct things; there was no internet, and searching through the one public library in my town (a huge, generally excellent, one) produced one book - which gave absolutely no adice that was different to the pet stores. 7 years ago, I adopted a tiny roborovski hamster, again, the pet store sold nothing that was suitable, but I went home, could look up the requirements and 2 days later, he had everything he needed to live a long, healthy and happy life. Robo hamsters run up to 7-8 miles per night in the wild, and need to burrow. A tiny wheel is not sufficient. They need lots of space, and suitable items are often not cheap; plus, the hamsters may be cheap, but exotic vets are often few and far between, and also not cheap. Yes, it sucks if your child wants a per and you can't afford the right care for it, but it is a living animal, and I'm sorry, but your child's wishes (or yours for an AeStHetIc cage etc) do not supercede the animal's rights to suitable care. Sorry, I can rant about this for hours.
For kids, I'd always recommend rats over hamsters - again, they do require quite an outlay for the initial set up, and also, can have very large vet bills. They also require a fairly consistent level of effort in their care, and if a parent cannot, for whatever reason, ensure that, should the child be unwilling/unable to care for them, that they can step in - again. DO. NOT. GET. Just because they are small and cheap, they still have feelings and rights.
Then again, these people don't even give a shit about pregnant children dying giving birth, why would they care about animals?
Meanwhile, RIP Dennis, Junior, JJ, Einstein, Newton and Minnie. I'm so sorry, little hamsters

[Bluebirdbluebell]

DuggarData posted a transcript of the Q & A Kelly and Alyssa did. Tumblr is making harder to use and share posts, but if you scroll down you read it (link).

[JermajestyDuggar]

I loved my childhood hamster so much. I honestly don’t know if I fucked up his care but I tried to give him a good life. I had a hamster ball and he seemed to love to run all over our house. I loved petting him and holding him. He lived over 5 years and seemed happy to be with me. He liked attention and never bit me once. He died in my hands. I noticed he was having a seizure and I picked him up to cuddle him and he died in my arms. I was so broken hearted. I never got another hamster because I was positive no one would compare to him. ETA: I believe he was a Syrian.

Edited August 1, 2022 by JermajestyDuggar

[Bastet]

   It makes me sad that the various small animals we adopted—gerbils, hamsters,and Guinea pigs—suffered in our care. This was before the web, and we would have done better if we had known. I think our cat had a good life, but we knew what a cat needed. 
   When asked what he would miss the most about a recently deceased hamster, our then seven-year-old son said, “Reggie always gave me good advice.”  It made sense to us that this particularly mischievous kid may have been operating under the influence of a rodent. We couldn’t immediately bury him in the backyard with all the rites that were the due our pets because the ground was frozen, so Reggie spent a month in my freezer—you know, next to the chicken thighs. 😏

Edited August 1, 2022 by Bastet

[HeartsAFundie]

On 8/1/2022 at 2:55 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I loved my childhood hamster so much. I honestly don’t know if I fucked up his care but I tried to give him a good life. I had a hamster ball and he seemed to love to run all over our house. I loved petting him and holding him. He lived over 5 years and seemed happy to be with me. He liked attention and never bit me once. He died in my hands. I noticed he was having a seizure and I picked him up to cuddle him and he died in my arms. I was so broken hearted. I never got another hamster because I was positive no one would compare to him. ETA: I believe he was a Syrian.

Sounds like you went above and beyond with love and care for your furry friend.  Five years is a long life for a hamster-the average lifespan is 1.5-3 years-and it sounds like he couldn't have had a better life than what he had with you.     

Edited August 2, 2022 by HeartsAFundie

[CanadianMamam]

For people who were curious about Gil's sermons, Michaela posted the link. https://biblebaptisteasttn.com/sermons/

[Scrabblemaster]

I had a rabbit as a child and I should have cared better for him. I was too young to know better, and I do not blame my parents for not knowing better. Mostly because in their upbringing rabbits were there as food. Both sets of my grandparents had small farms to provide for their families and they bred rabbits so that they could eat meat. So honestly the concept of a rabbit as a pet for their daughter was strange for my parents. My rabbit was 9 years old when he died. I am sorry that I did not treat him better. 

Now as an adult I had two hamsters. And when I tell children about them and the start the "oh I want to have a hamster" - speech I always tell them that hamsters are not a pet for children. And I explain it to them. How late the hamster gets up. That I can sometimes touch my hamster but that I never cuddle with him. That hamsters need much space although they are small (I once explained to an adult that he could absolutely survive living in the bathroom, he could sleep in the bathtub and someone gives him food three times per day. That grown man was a total asshole and did not understand why I gave my hamster 4qm space. He wanted to argue. My analogy with the bathroom stopped his bullshit.) I also used the bathroom-story once or twice with children, not to piss them off but to break it down to something they can understand. And it works. When children visited us and they wanted to see the hamster I always agreed. We went to the hamster area and there was no hamster because they are nocturnal. I showed them the house where I knew the hamster slept in and that was that. Pretty boring for them. But it worked. Our hamsters were both very much fun to observe. But nothing to cuddle.  

@JermajestyDuggar Wow you had an awesome hamster. 5 years is so old for hamsters! You were very lucky and it seems as if he had a very good life. If you had fucked up his care he would not have lived 5 years I think.

[GuineaPigCourtship]

I was at a work conference last weekend and there was a talk about hamsters.  It was given by a lab animal veterinarian, but since most medicine for rodents is discovered that way I often go to lab animal talks when I want to brush up on or learn new things about pocket pets.  I'm not sure if the speaker meant for the whole talk to basically be about socializing hamsters, but that's all I took away from it.  They are DEFINITELY not a beginner pet.

[neuroticcat]

So I'm still holding out for the Bates cancellation to be due to a reveal about how horrible IBLP beliefs are, but I was thinking: what if it's more mundane?

Given the timing, what if the Bates family refused to get the COVID vax? In early spring a lot of companies/studios were requiring it, and I wonder if a company like UP did, especially given how much close contact there would be between family and crew.

If the Bates are all in anti-vax, maybe they refused thinking they'd get an exception and were instead shown the door? 

[JMO]

2 hours ago, neuroticcat said:

If the Bates are all in anti-vax, maybe they refused thinking they'd get an exception and were instead shown the door? 

This is a great theory.  It would fit all the necessary boxes.  Since it was already filmed I would wonder why they didn't show the episodes they had, but maybe that was contractual and they either couldn't since the Bates were hoping to show them at a later date with a renewal or didn't due to already having someone else lined up.  Hmmmm. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

2 hours ago, JMO said:

This is a great theory.  It would fit all the necessary boxes.  Since it was already filmed I would wonder why they didn't show the episodes they had, but maybe that was contractual and they either couldn't since the Bates were hoping to show them at a later date with a renewal or didn't due to already having someone else lined up.  Hmmmm. 

It doesn't fit to me, because the episodes were already filmed. If that was the issue, the crew was already put at risk during the filming and they could cancel at the end of the season. 

I think there has to be a big reason the Bates were cancelled. My theory is the network was worried that Lawson and Trace would have turn to have a bigger role in the Insurrection and may be charged with something. 

Whatever the reason I hope the truth eventually comes out.

[neuroticcat]

I had hoped it was something that would reveal their connections with IBLP and spotlight how horrible it is, but I think that would have come out by now. 

But playing out my theory - because I've got nothing else: I think they could have filmed with precautions up until studios mandated the vax. I mean, I think that's what all studios were doing - daily testing, social distancing, masks, etc. Perhaps most of the episodes were outside or the way the quarantine episodes were done. In that way, they could have had most of the footage filmed before the mandates went into effect.

Maybe all they had left were the talking heads - don't those typically all happen in one go? So perhaps the filming was done but not the interviews which would obviously require close quarters for many days. Also, but this is reaching into, what, early spring last year? - IIRC there was a lot of certainty that the vax would mean the end of the pandemic, so I could totally see it being a big deal if they refused at that time. 

 It could also be that the Bates saw it as something they had to take a principled stand for freedom on or something. I'm thinking of how even pretty recently the Caldwell's were publicly blasting the nursing home on social media for requiring masks. For some fundies this has become a hill to die on. While I think the Bates are completely savvy enough to not broadcast controversial views, they absolutely have that same stance of being willing to "suffer persecution" for what they believe is right. 

I don't know, while I'm on the speculation bus, maybe it's a piece of all the sister-feuding as well, given how vax/antivax stances have split some families up. Though that fits together less neatly for me. I could see a scenario where parents like Evan/Carlin and Whitney/Zach who each had a child who needed hospitalization early in the pandemic, might take the vaccine even if other fundies wouldn't. But if the rest of the Bates clan adopted the hardcore fundie belief that the vaccines have fetal tissue in them, maybe it would just be too much to accept them betraying the prolife principles? 

 

[Coconut Flan]

I'd be more inclined to believe footage surfaced of two or more Bates brothers at January 6 doing it than vaccine.  They'd been going plenty of time after vaccine was available and since the show was going to air within days, the interviews had already been done.  

[Cults-r-us]

On 8/2/2022 at 3:48 PM, HeartsAFundie said:

Sounds like you went above and beyond with love and care for your furry friend.  Five years is a long life for a hamster-the average lifespan is 1.5-3 years-and it sounds like he couldn't have had a better life than what he had with you.     

I had several rodents as pets throughout my childhood, who all mostly did ok as far as lifespan. I think the responsibility of their care must have weighed heavily on my subconscious because I have had a recurrent dream through the years (I'm 64 now) that I go to my basement and am shocked to realize I have not been feeding or watering my mice and hamsters. Some are salvageable, and I resume their care. End of dream. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I’m getting annoyed with how long the IBLP documentary is taking. They announced its existence in January and there hasn’t been a peep since. I wish they would at least give us a rough date. Like January 2023. So then we will at least know around the time it will be.

[ifosterkittens]

59 minutes ago, neuroticcat said:

Maybe all they had left were the talking heads - don't those typically all happen in one go? So perhaps the filming was done but not the interviews which would obviously require close quarters for many days.

The talking heads could easily be done without contact. The staff could set up the cameras, and computer screens, and have the Bates turn on the recording equipment, and answer questions with the prompts being done through a zoom call or over the phone. 

I agree I could see the Bates refusing to get vaxxed but wouldn't UP just use the already filmed footage and make a shorter season, salvage what they had. I also could see the Bates all getting vaxxed to keep the paycheck coming from UP. I don't think Gil and Kelly wanted to lose the income from UP. It would not surprise me if the Bates would gotten vaxxed but never disclosed that fact to keep the show. Maybe some of the adult kids and/or their spouses didn't agree with getting vaxxed and said they wouldn't participate in filming anymore, and maybe UP decided if they didn't have the whole family, or most of them it wasn't worth it to continue. 

Didn't UP pull the show from their channel for a while? If they did, I suspect it was a bigger issue because I doubt the Bates get royalties on reruns. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

Esther and Nathan got married in October 2021 and Katie and Travis got married in December of 2021. Both of those weddings were to be featured in the new season. Lawson proposed in October 2021.  And then there pregnancies, etc. That's  a lot of content for the show. 

The show was cancelled in January 2022. When they have such big events to air, it's strange that they cancelled without airing the season/footage they had.

[MaryOrMartha]

And if it were to do with not being vaccinated, I'm sure they'd be making comment (whether directly or in a passive aggressive manner) about their freedoms or convictions being discriminated against.

[neuroticcat]

1 hour ago, MaryOrMartha said:

And if it were to do with not being vaccinated, I'm sure they'd be making comment (whether directly or in a passive aggressive manner) about their freedoms or convictions being discriminated against.

That's a good point. 

I think UP could've used the footage, but at the time, refusing the vax was a big deal in Hollywood at least. Actors were losing roles, and there was a lot of pressure to help end the pandemic. So I could *maybe* see them not wanting to reward antivax behavior.

I think if the boys had been more involved at Jan 6, there would be info about that by now. It could be that UP is worried about that, but then they probably also know their viewership. I imagine very few Bates fans would have serious issue with them being there - they'd offer plenty of excuses or be proud of the "patriotism." Or, UP could easily just edit them out. I mean, they saw that viewers still watching Duggars with Josh edited out, so I can't imagine they'd be too put off of editing kids out. 

It will drive me nuts if we never find out.

21 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m getting annoyed with how long the IBLP documentary is taking. They announced its existence in January and there hasn’t been a peep since. I wish they would at least give us a rough date. Like January 2023. So then we will at least know around the time it will be.

I thought it was supposed to be out this fall? But I haven't checked recently.