I remember seeing the trailer for this and thinking, huh, a story about a wannabe racer becoming the sugar baby of his idol, that sounds fun. And Pit Babe isn't not that, exactly, but boy what a mislead! At least the show itself makes it clear within the first five minutes that this is also a) omegaverse and b) a new and exciting take on omegaverse.

I want to be critical of the plot, but having read the novel in a futile attempt to see if I could make more sense of the world-building in a format where censorship didn't force them to sidestep male pregnancy, I know that they did their best with what they had, expanding on all of the characters outside of Charlie and Babe and integrating them, especially the rest of the racing team, into the wider plot. Really, I think the pacing was off--there were a lot of scenes that dragged on too long, especially the racing since that ended up being largely incidental--and it was of course hampered by the fact that they couldn't explicitly say that the villain's evil plot was to get Babe pregnant. Just that they'd make him "have a baby." Have a baby how!! I kept yelling at the screen. Whatever, it's fine.

(It is very funny how the omegaverse stuff manifests in a medium where they can't, apparently, say anyone is an omega. Honestly, the omegaverse aspect of the novel is more a vehicle for the male pregnancy to human trafficking scheme, since very few other common omegaverse tropes appear. I do like the innovation of "special" alphas etc., both because it's funny and because it's something new. I am less sure how I feel about enigmas and them being able to impregnate alphas, mostly because it raises existentially horrifying physiological questions. Do alphas have vestigial uteri?? Do they DEVELOP one when they're with an enigma??)

As for the show itself, it is well-produced, except for the absolutely hideous opening credits sequence, and clearly made with a decent budget. They did about as well with the action scenes as you'd expect from an average tv budget, and even if the racing bored me personally, they did not skimp on those sequences. A lot of care clearly went into making this show! The sponcon is not subtle, but isn't that delightful sometimes? I think the funniest one was when Charlie was given a carton of soy milk to "build up his strength."

The acting is somewhat variable, but in general I think everyone did a decent job! Pavel had a lot on his shoulders as the main character and the main emotional anchor of the show, but he handled it well, and looked beautiful doing so. The script writers said we are going to make that beautiful man cry, and he committed. His chemistry with Pooh formed a great foundation for the main relationship and even when they were saying cringe stuff to each other I had to go aww. They really did match each other's freak.

The other actors also put in the work. Standouts to me were Garfield as Kenta, a character who is almost nonexistent in the novel, but was given depth and pathos both from the writing and the performance, and Supanut as Way, bravely playing someone trying to be a top even if I think Way would actually burst into tears if he had to top for real. Sailub and Pon as Alan and Jeff provided a much-needed dorky awkward relationship foil to the nonstop hornytown that Charlie and Babe.

On the whole, I don't know if I would recommend Pit Babe to just anyone. If you can take some nonsense and some cringe, and want to watch something that just has a lot going on, this might be for you. It's a popcorn show, the same way a Fast & Furious installment is a popcorn movie. Come for the pretty people and high production value, stay for the implied mpreg...? Extremely curious what they're going to do with season 2 since they've already finished up what's in the novel--and I'll be there, with my clown shoes and red nose on, ready to watch.