Scientists have long been convinced that babies in the womb can hear what’s going on in the outside world.

There are doubters who claim this isn’t true, of course, because resolving the issue would immediately cut off all their government funding and flood the market with PhDs. The PhDs would have to find real jobs, displacing Millennials who would start complaining to their parents until their parents told them to go to their rooms.

This is why, I suspect, not much has been made of the recent, and incontrovertible, fact that babies can not only hear in the womb, what they hear affects the choices they make later in their lives.

How else can anyone explain the coming television season?

Last week, during the annual event known as Upfronts, the television networks introduced the new shows we’ll see in the fall.

It’s hard to explain Upfronts. They’re a bit like a two-year-old’s birthday party. Everybody tolerates the kid diving head first into the chocolate frosting because there’s adult food and drink available. For Upfronts, replace the phrase “two-year-old” with “new television shows.” You can leave in the part about taking a dive. Also, the adult food and drink. This year, though, the networks came to the Upfronts with something new.

Old shows.

Their rosters for the fall include MacGyver, Tales From the Crypt, MTV Unplugged, 24, Prison Break, and Gilmore Girls. It’s as if we tumbled down a staircase and landed in the mid-80s.

How could that happen?

With Rod Serling unavailable for comment, the New York Times interviewed some top television executives, who cited the popularity of older shows on streaming services such as Netflix. Also, these executives predicted that with so many viewing choices, shows with familiar names will stand out from the crowd.

(If that’s all it takes, why not invent new shows but call them MacGyver, Tales From the Crypt, MTV Unplugged, 24, Prison Break, and Gilmore Girls? Just asking.)

Naturally, these executives avoided the real explanation because that would have involved the application of a higher form of mathematics known as subtraction.

Television shows hire writers in their mid-20s to early 30s. These writers would have been born from the mid-80s to the early 90s, while their mothers watched endless episodes of MacGyver, Tales From the Crypt, MTV Unplugged, 24, Prison Break, and Gilmore Girls.

Now adrift in the real world, these writers are rightfully confused

Further research determined that Writer 2 was born prematurely.

But here’s the scary part.

There’s a good possibility that sometime this fall there will be pregnant women watching television. And what will they be watching?

MacGyver, Tales From the Crypt, MTV Unplugged, 24, Prison Break, and Gilmore Girls. Anybody want to take a guess at what shows will be new for 2041?

And 2066, 2091, and, 2116.

Unless we stop pregnant women from watching television, we’re going to have to rename the Upfronts Groundhog Day.

Some television critics suggested mothers-to-be heed the familiar call to read to their unborn children.

I can’t wait for 2041 when MacGyver builds a lethal weapon out of a cat and a hat.