The Pump Returns

Bravo’s three-time Emmy nominated hit show Vanderpump Rules made its highly anticipated return to TV this week. The good news is that it has a lot of similarities with the original production. The bad news? It has a lot of similarities with the original production.

From the in-house fraternization and drinking on the job to the convoluted romantic and platonic relationships and fame-hungry staff, it’s very much a rinse and repeat of the original – and that could bode very well for the show this time around, or it could be the Achilles heel.

Despite the similarities and familiarity of it all, Lisa Vanderpump spoke to The Hollywood Reporter and assured long-time fans of the show that they are in for something different. When asked what she would tell skeptical fans, she had this to say:

“To go in not expecting to see what we’ve done before…I think what we did before, we did really well…I think people are different to how they were 12 years ago…But most people, it’s a stepping stone, and they’re navigating through their life in Hollywood, and it’s a group of friends that are very closely connected, sometimes [more] closely connected than I would like, but shit happens. Expect something different.”

During her interview, she compared this cast with the original cast, highlighting the role of social media, suggesting that it might have made the transition easier for the new faces. She pointed out that the original show came out before Instagram was a thing, with the pilot airing shortly after Twitter started. And Lisa thinks that with this cast’s familiarity not only with social media, but with reality TV and cameras on constantly, that this new cast may have an easier time adjusting to life on film.

“The relaxed atmosphere of cameras, I think, was much easier for this group of people than it was for the first group, because the world has changed. They’re used to seeing themselves on camera, albeit on social media. Very, very different feeling,” she told the outlet.

But besides the use of social media helping warm the cast up to being the next generation of reality TV stars is also the well-documented opportunity for visibility, success and most importantly money. Some members of the new cast are not new to SUR. In fact, we’ve seen a few of these faces on older episodes of the show. They may very well have been kicking themselves for deciding not to film after seeing what the show did for the first round of cast members.

To recap – Scheana became a published author and earned herself a spot on the spinoff The Valley, Katie, after growing tired of waiting around on her now ex-husband Tom to go into business with her, established a sandwich shop with Ariana. And I need not mention the heights Ariana’s career soared to after the biggest cheating scandal to hit unscripted TV – but landing the gig of permanent Love Island host is by far the biggest accolade for any cast member to have obtained. 

I’ve always said that those with the least to lose tend to make the best TV. That’s what made this show such a hit in the beginning. Fans had to pick their jaws up off the floor after each episode over the cast’s apparent lack of awareness that they were on national TV. But they didn’t care and that’s what made it so enthralling. People that have nothing to lose speak more freely, they throw caution to the wind and they don’t put too much thought into how they come across. That’s also what made Secret Lives of Mormon Wives have such an explosive first season. I wrote about that here. That’s led to the cast landing roles on Dancing with the Stars and The Bachelorette. I wrote about that too.

But on the other side of that, the opposite is true. The more careful and editorialized a cast becomes and the more they find themselves trying to perform to keep up with appearances, the less engaged the audience becomes because it’s a clear assumption that we can’t tell what is overly and unnecessarily produced and what isn’t. 

That’s why the most recent season of Selling Sunset caught major heat - for allowing Jason Oppenheim to have too much power over the production of the show. And with lines between cast members and the audience blurring thanks to the same platforms Lisa mentioned, which cast members themselves leverage in order to spill trade secrets, we become privier than we were ever intended to be to what happens behind the scenes. 

To have a chance to access the kind of opportunities that fall in the laps of reality TV stars that truly understand the assignment – it’s a hard thing to say no to. And I’m looking forward to seeing how this new generation of cast members respond to that invitation.