It's hard to talk about the Bates family from "Bringing Up Bates" without referencing the Duggar family from "19 Kids and Counting."
The two share tons of similarities, such as being tight-knit Christian families with conservative values. It also helps that the two families have formed a deep friendship throughout the years.
However, Executive Producer Matthew Hightower insists that the two families are different from one another.
"Yes, there are similarities between the families, but you really can't compare them to each other just as you can't compare any two other families. They're very different from each other in many, many ways, and I think that's all that needs to be said about this," he told the Observer Culture.
Hightower said "Bringing Up Bates" is interesting to watch because of the dynamics shared by the parents and siblings. "I think it's because people are curious to see how it works with all of these people living together. I mean, I only have two kids and that's enough chaos for me, so 19 of them seems ludicrous, but then you see this family together and you just can't stop watching all of these people interacting," he said.
Meanwhile, Timothy Kuryak, who is the Senior Vice-President of Unscripted Programming at UP TV, added that even though religion is an important aspect in the Bates' family's lives, it's not overtly shown in their programme.
"It's an important part of who they are but we don't dwell on it. There is praying on the show but not a lot of it. We weren't going to not show that aspect. That would be cutting out a very important part of the family's daily life," he said.
Others might write off the series because of its religious content, but Hightower says they are making a mistake when they do so. "If people do that I think they're missing out on a bigger message. You don't have to be religious to see the benefits of how this family treats each other and we're a society that can learn a lot from that," he said.
