Never mind, Kate, it could be worse - Six TV Pregnancies Even Odder Than The Royal Baby

Amy Pond & Her Schrodinger's Pregnancy

You might remember this odd storyline on Doctor Who - hell, it was only yesterday we were all talking about it, and saying... yeah, what the hell was that? Or just screaming like Amy in the above picture.

So, Real Amy conceived a fetus aboard the TARDIS on her wedding night, but was then kidnapped and locked in a gigantic birth tube, as if her genitals were launching a torpedo. Meanwhile, a Fake Amy took her place on the TARDIS, confusing everyone by appearing both pregnant and not-pregnant at once, until the Doctor caught wind of all this, saved Real Amy but managed to lose her baby daughter by falling for the exact same trick again.

Silly Doctor. You might think he'd go find the kid double-quick-smart, but instead he just forgot about it. Or decided that we already had the adult version hanging around in the form of River Song, so that'll do.

Or maybe the Doc realised that babies are boring on television, so better to let it go. That mantra will come up again on this list. (Amy also got pregnant in her first year on the show, but it was just a dream. Or a terrifying portent.)

Anyway, this story had its moments early on, the revelation of Fake Amy was a great twist, but just kinda trailed off. Nice try, though. And yeah, believe it or not this isn't even the worst of the pregnancies here, I just thought I'd start with a recent one.

Angel's Awful Family Tree

For some reason, grim Buffy spin-off Angel really enjoyed horrific pregnancy storylines. Over the course of seasons 2-4, they churned out two of the bastards (literally!), both with backstories as dreadful as each other. In fact, they were even related.

Let me explain. First, Angel managed to impregnate his mother/girlfriend (don't ask) Darla, even though he is a vampire with dead sperm and this shouldn't be possible. Clearly, he has not seen Twilight. Then she gives birth, dying in the process, and Angel has a son called Connor, who isn't a vampire but does have superpowers. Again, for the full story, go see Breaking Dawn - Part Two, in cinemas now!

Anyway, babies are boring on television, so Connor quickly gets aged up using time travel, and having been saved from a life of mewling and soiling himself, repays Daddy by sleeping with his love interest, Cordelia. And then she gives birth to... some kind of goddess-supervillain-thing. This bundle of non-joy doesn't just emulate Connor by immediately growing up, it also reveals it has manipulated this entire chain of events, including the impossible vampire birth, to achieve whatever the hell its motivation is.

I'm glad someone planned that mess out, because until then it sounded like naturally occurring bullshit. Moving on.

Phoebe Carries Her Brother's Non-Incestuous Triplets

Not the only pregnancy on Friends, but by far the oddest, and giving us a break from the sci-fi shows that make up the bulk of this list. Phoebe Buffay, token hippy of the group, decides to carry her brother's triplets as a surrogate. Thankfully there's IVF involved, although I'm sure horrific fan-fiction exists describing them manually getting down to it.

Generally, Phoebe existed to provide a kooky counter-point to the dull middle-class troubles of her friends ("Can't think of a line? Have Phoebe say something weird!" was plastered across the writers' toilet wall), but this was a bit strange even by her standards. Sleeping on the streets? Licking tramps? Singing songs about her mother's suicide to a jaunty guitar strum? All normal.

So, after actress Lisa Kudrow became pregnant, they must have relished thinking up the most ridiculous way to write it into the series, and fair enough, this might be it. The episode where she gave birth is very sweet too. And the kids disappeared immediately afterwards, because babies are boring on television.

The Hideous Tragedy Of Daenerys Targaryen

I could've found a few ways to make Game of Thrones topical for this list, since there's a lot of royalty and bloodline wrangling on that show. But this is the most direct, also probably the least cheerful.

So, Dany marries Khal Drogo, king of the savages, gets pregnant after the regulation four or five HBO sex scenes, but tragically loses the baby after accidentally sacrificing it to save Drogo's life - unsuccessfully. I did warn you this wasn't pleasant. Anyway, she hatches dragon eggs a few episodes later and declares herself The Mother Of Dragons, so don't throw away your "Congratulations" card just yet.

This was a good well-constructed storyline, unlike some of the ropey pregnancy arcs I'm dealing with. Not to mention, babies are boring on television, but dragons are not, and they remain a major force in Game of Thrones to date. I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with it - preferably towards a big fight, although budget constraints seem to keep the little blighters off-screen much of the time.

Curtis Does A Whoopsy

As you'd expect, Misfits is bringing good taste to the party. So Curtis gets the power to switch gender and, as they often do on this show, chooses to use it to enhance his masturbation, by switching around mid-way, etc. And then he accidentally knocks himself up somehow, meaning he wins the prize of most incestuous pregnancy on this list easily, even edging out Phoebe's sibling-babies.

Anyway, this could easily have become a clusterfuck of Angel proportions, but instead Curtis panics and immediately has his gender-swapping power removed, disposing of his female alter ego for good. Part of me felt sad, as that was a fun twist beaten down to a one-week joke. Never mind. Still definitely deserves a place here.

Anyone On Glee, Really

Teenage soap-musical-comedy Glee has always been keen to preach on the issues, so it's probably no surprise that we got the teen pregnancy storyline only weeks into the first season. Cheerleader Quinn Fabray cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend and, predictably, shit happened. Boyfriend Finn believes for a while that she got pregnant from using the same jacuzzi as him, because sex education in Ohio is clearly awful. Anyway, the kid was quickly adopted, because (sing with me now) babies are boring on television.

That, to be honest, was the comparatively normal example of a Glee pregnancy arc. Remember when Will Schuster's wife Terri was... pretending to be pregnant with cushions? A storyline which required either her to be a spymaster or him an utter moron. (Obviously, I suspect the latter.) And then Sue Sylvester, middle-aged asexual cheerleading coach, announced her pregnancy, hinting that a mysterious celebrity was the father. Strange, strange place. I fully expect one of the gay characters to announce they're expecting in the next season finale.

In short: should you ever somehow visit the fictional William McKinley High School, I recommend using all the available contraception.