HBO Orders Comic Horror Series ‘The Baby’

(Image credit: HBO)

HBO has ordered The Baby, a darkly comic horror series. The network calls it “a funny, raw examination of motherhood as an institution: a set of unspoken rules that affect women differently depending on how they’re viewed by society. If you're not scared by that, you should be.”

The HBO and Sky co-production is co-created by Siân Robins-Grace and Lucy Gaymer and produced by Sister and Proverbial Pictures. 

When 38-year-old Natasha unexpectedly ends up with a baby, her life of doing what she wants, when she wants, implodes. “Controlling, manipulative and with violent powers, the baby twists Natasha’s life into a horror show. Where does it come from? What does it want? And what lengths will Natasha have to go to in order to get her life back?” said HBO. 

“Siân and Lucy’s exploration of motherhood is as funny and resonant as it is twisted,” said Amy Gravitt, executive VP, HBO Programming. “The Baby gives voice to all the women who just don’t know. We’re thrilled to be partnering again with Jane Featherstone, Carolyn Strauss and our friends at Sky.”  

HBO signed up for eight episodes. The series will be filmed in the UK in 2021. 

“With The Baby, we want to explore the powerful anxiety around the question of whether or not to have children,” said Robins-Grace and Gaymer. “The ambivalence of not knowing, the bafflement at everyone else’s certainty and the suspicion that the whole thing is one millennia-long scam. We’re thrilled to be working with such a phenomenal team of producers to help us bring this weird baby into the world with HBO and Sky.”

Robins-Grace executive produces along with Jane Featherstone, Carolyn Strauss, Naomi de Pear and Katie Carpenter. Robins-Grace developed Sex Education with Laurie Nunn. 

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.