Will A New Version of the Real Housewives of DC be the Next RHOA?
Bravo TV (and frankly the bloggers that make their livings blogging about Bravo TV) have been worried for quite awhile. The public is getting sick of The Real Housewives franchises. For the past ten seasons, Bravo has been adding new franchises while ratcheting up the ratchet on the old ones. After all this time, they see the end coming. It’s Sunday night and most of us will chose NOT to watch Bravo tonight. Why? Because most of us didn’t invest in the second show they tried to replace the success of black women brawling for no reason on TV. The connection to “medicine” didn’t make the ratchet any more interesting. We’ve been hate watching housewives for a long time. There is not much left to love. A glimpse of a fancy refrigerator here, beautiful ocean view there, nice things like that have morphed into Rosario being told she should be grateful for her handmedowns and to quit her bitching, Heather going on and on about $7,000 sinks, Bethenny whining about her homelessness in the penthouse of the Four Seasons or wherever. We are no longer allowed to simply notice the nice things, they are shoved down our throats in a way that turns us into hate watchers. We may like their things but we no longer like them.
And if they aren’t shoving their lives of (often pretend) excess down our throats, they are shoving each other. Or screaming at each other for the smallest things. They are being held back at reunion episodes, pushing Andy back into his seat, storming off the set in hysterics or whatever else it takes to get attention. And it works. Each year, Bravo brings back the table flippers, the screamers, and the religious hypocrites. And we hate it. We hate production. We hate the show. We threaten never to watch again, but we do.
It’s not entirely Bravo’s fault. When they cast normal women with manners, they either quit like Lydia, get axed like Joyce or agree to come back sparingly like Lizzie. And most of the viewers are thrilled because their expectation now is for a show like Bad Girls or Flava of Love where perhaps someone might take a literal shit on the living room carpet, because most everyone has been so desensitized by the escalating dramatics.
But numbers are dwindling, most people checked out of this stuff long ago. And with the franchise on screen volunteers beginning to march off to their prison cells (yes, Apollo and Teresa and Joe are just the beginning in my opinion) Bravo is scrambling for new ideas. It’s Sunday night and only one show made it on the 100 rated cable shows of the entire day last Sunday. Barely. Married to Medicine barely made a million views, on a Sunday night where we are all still programmed to tune in after the end of the RHOA season. Their latest show, an attempt at scripted drama, Odd Mom Out is not going to help them. So what are they going to do?
Apparently, the new plan is reinvent RHOA. I started hearing about this back in March when the Washington Post (THE WASHINGTON POST!!!! What has happened to hard news media???) Started talking about Bravo bringing back the Real Housewives of DC. That is not going to happen. However, according to the news outlet in a story published March 5, 2015:
On Tuesday, a select group of Washington insiders received an e-mail from Leftfield Entertainment, the production company that’s been trying to mount a D.C. reality show for some time now.
“We’re currently casting in Prince George’s County (and surrounding areas) for the young, the wealthy and the uber-fabulous women who are proud to call it home,” read the notice from a producer fishing for names to drop in the casting pool.
Just what qualifies as an “uber-fabulous” woman ready for reality super stardom? According to the e-mail, Leftfield is searching for “the most outgoing Queen Bee” in Prince George’s, on of the richest African-American counties in the country. When we called Leftfield to get more details, Katherine Scott, the production assistant who sent the original casting notice, emphasized that “everything is still very very preliminary. Nothing has been decided yet.”
Fine whatever. I read about three of these casting calls a week looking for rich fabulous ladies in various cities. The only thing that I know of in the pipelines is a show that appears to be knocking of Married to Medicine in Houston. I know it has been taping lately.
But now, people are starting to pay closer attention to this Bossip Exclusive from June 5th. That story says that filming has been going on for two months and that it is, in fact, an all black cast. The cast according to Bossip.com consists of Katie Rost is a model and TV personality who used to date Russsel Simmons and is now married to Dr. James Orsni , has three kids and runs a non-profit. Gizelle Bryant she has a line of women’s shapewear, three daughters and is divorced from popular Baltimore pastor Jamal Bryant. Robyn Dixon, a publicist who is divorced from yet still living withformer Atlanta Hawks player Juan Dixon. He is part of the basketball staff at the University of Maryland. The “divorce” could be so that he could file bankruptcy (which he did) last year and let her keep the house. I really don’t know enough to speculate. Yet.
Andy has repeated said told fans there will not be any more Real Housewives of DC. Personally, I thought that show deserved a bit more time. But we have a new “Real Housewives” show airing now about a bunch of blond women on Long Island. Check out my thoughts on that show here. I that show was a one and done for me. It looks like Bravo is headed for a huge ratings problem. By the time RHOA or RHONJ comes back will we still even care?
This Maryland, errr… I mean DC show better be good. It may be the only thing they have left. If they decide to pick it up. H/T Tamara Tattles
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