WOULD somebody please ex plain to me why there are so many shows like this one on TV these days?
You know the type – the so-called “reality” TV show that promises to reveal everything that goes on inside the homes – generally in southern California – of the rich and the not-yet-famous (until they get their own reality show, that is – after which their “fame” is still questionable).
There have been so many of these (“Gastineau Girls,” “Keeping Up with the Kardashians“), that I can’t even remember them all by name.
But I always have the same reaction, which is to ask myself: Who on Earth gives a rat’s patoot about these people? And also: Who in the world can stand to spend more than five minutes watching them?
And yet, enough people must care about these “real” housewives of Orange County, Calif., that this Bravo series tonight starts its third season.
You want a show about nothing? Move over, “Seinfeld” – “The Real Housewives of Orange County” is really about nothing.
Here’s the story of five lovely ladies (well, some are lovelier than others) with breast implants who rule their own roosts – spacious homes in the McMansionville section of wealthy Orange County, where once upon a time lived the fictional characters of “The O.C” on Fox, the show that inspired this “real-life” version.
In tonight’s season premiere, you’ll be brought up to date on all the shopping and party-planning these busy home economists have been up to since the previous season came and went.
To be fair, one of the families – Tammy Knickerbocker and daughters Megan and Lindsey – is coping with a terrible tragedy, the sudden death of a father (and Tammy’s ex-husband) who was the family bread winner.
But in this show, their situation is positioned as being on par with other, more lightweight dilemmas – such as whether to allow one spoiled 18-year-old to take an unsupervised trip to Miami with her friends as a high school graduation gift, or whether one woman’s rose garden will be spacious enough to seat 200 wedding guests comfortably.
In this Orange County, all the kitchens are huge, no woman ever has to work, everyone drives a Mercedes, all teens pout, and the weather is always sunny.
In fact, it is the dullest place on Earth.
“The Real Housewives
of Orange County”
Third-season premiere
Tonight at 10 on Bravo