New TLC Series Follows Utah Man With 3 Wives & 13 Kids

Posted Aug 10, 2010 by Walt Belcher

Updated Aug 10, 2010 at 10:37 AM

Just when you think reality TV can’t get any weirder along comes TLC with “Sister Wives,” the real life story of a polygamist with three wives and 13 kids.

It’s like HBO’s “Big Love” but with real people who aren’t as attractive.  The seven episode series, debuting on Sept. 26, will follow Utah fundamentalist Mormon Kody Brown and his three wives; Meri, Janelle, and Christine as they welcome a fourth wife Robyn and her three kids from a previous marriage.

They all seem like one big happy family, although Kody admits he has to take notes to keep track of his women.

Each half hour episode “exposes the inner workings of a polygamist household, revealing the unexpectedly tight-knit and loving relationships between Kody’s wives,” according to a TLC release. Each wife has her own bedroom.

In the first episode, which airs Sept. 26, Kody, who’s in ad sales, introduces his family: Meri, his first (and only legal) wife, who was raised in the polygamist lifestyle; Janelle, his second wife, who was raised in a typical nuclear family; and third wife Christine, also raised in the polygamist lifestyle.

Kody has kids with each woman (one with Meri, six with Janelle and six with Christine).  Polygamy is illegal in Utah but apparently enforcement is slack in the state if the adults are consenting and the kids are not being abused.