If you watched last night's episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, then you know the show pivoted away from one huge story to the next.
After three weeks dedicated to Kim being robbed at gunpoint in Paris, producers launched a new arc about her desire to have another kid.
Yes, we've been hearing about Kim's uterus for weeks now, and if this installment of KUWTK is any indication, there's a lot more fertility talk to come.
It's enough to make some fans wonder if Kim's desire is legit, or if she's simply doing what she can to boost the show's slumping ratings.
Rumors about Keeping Up With the Kardashians being canceled certainly aren't new, but they have intensified in recent weeks here.
In fact, they seem to surface about twice a month.
The difference between this time and past seasons is that the numbers are not good, and support the speculation like never before.
E! execs are said to be troubled by the show's sharp decline in the critical 18-49 demographic, which used to be its stronghold.
As a result, there are serious doubts as to whether or not the Kard clan will even be given the courtesy of a farewell, swan song season.
It would be a humiliating defeat for a crew that prizes success, its image, and its public reputation as celebrities above anything else.
Basically, fame is Bae.
So perhaps it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Kim might be fabricating, or at least really stretching, all this talk about a baby.
“Kim’s new baby storyline was developed by Kim, Kris and show producers very recently as a way to save the show,” said a source.
If you thought the end of Kim's PTSD storyline - which got almost sensational hype for the first 2-3 weeks, felt abrupt, you're not alone.
And now it seems we know exactly why the show was so quick to abandon an approach that formerly felt rich with dramatic potential.
It seems fan interest simply didn't meet expectations.
The apathy from viewers (as indicated by the show's continued ratings dip) may have something to do with that we've been there, done that.
Kim's Paris robbery by armed assailants received a ton of press coverage when it happened, and that was back in October, half a year ago.
In other words, a millennium in tabloid news cycle time, and fans of the family likely felt they knew everything there was to know about the crime.
So Momager and shot-caller Kris Jenner called an audible - and she put the responsibility of pulling it off squarely on Kim's shoulders:
The pregnancy storyline was reportedly shoehorned into last night's episode at the last minute, and Kim was well compensated for this.
Yes, the unexpected increase in workload got her a bonus.
And a big one too. Maybe even enough to soften the blow of losing millions in the aforementioned attack they tried to dramatize on E!
“She knows that Kim is the last hope of saving them from cancelation,” an insider close to Kris and the show told Radar Online.
“Kris offered Kim and Kanye several million dollars a week if they can get the ratings up,” says the Keeping Up production insider.
Sadly, short of debuting a new sex tape, at this point, there's probably not much Kim can do to renew interest in her decade-old reality show.
