Is Bravo's The Housewives SERIES the NEW SOAPS?

[Cheap21]

Im drawing a blank on who that could be. Maybe Kimberly? Was it a blonde from season 1 bc I hated her as well. The second description sounds like Lauri, as her son was a mess. Is it the same person?

[DRW50]

I guess so, yes.

I just remember the other woman always fussing over her daughter and ignoring/badmouthing her son, and the son took it out on the younger brother, and it made me uncomfortable.

There was another woman who obsessed over her daughter. Maybe I'm getting them all mixed up.

[DaytimeFan]

You're thinking of Jeana, she worshiped Kara, her golden child, took baseball star Shane's abuse on younger brother Colton while fending off alcoholic DUI bound soon to be ex husband and former Major League Baseball star Matt. TALK ABOUT DRAMA! Loved Jeana, wish she'd come back to RHOC.

I agree that the first two seasons of Real Housewives of Orange County was just the best, it was the most authentic. Since then, the shows have become very conflict driven, though the best of the franchises (Atlanta and Beverly Hills) manage a good balance of light/amusing with conflict/anger. I don't think OC, NYC and to a lesser extent NJ are the best indicators for the franchise anymore because their ratings are not in the same league as Atlanta or Beverly Hills. Each franchise has its own flavor and I think different audiences are attracted to different tones for each show.

In terms of shelf life, nothing has a long shelf life these days. The OC gals have been on the air for 5 years and they've generated 80 episodes, that's not too shabby and certainly comparable to other prime time shows, especially prime time soaps. That's the other difference, The Real Housewives air on cable and in prime time, not network daytime. Their success is HUGE because of the numbers they manage on cable up against so much choice. Really, they demonstrate just how dead daytime is in its current form.

As Cheap21 pointed out, it's not just the Real Housewives, but shows like Mob Wives as well which clearly illustrate Female Lead programs becoming monster hits on cable. It's what the audience wants. No wonder daytime is dead, if GH was anything like Mob Wives its ratings would be slaying Y&R's...but it isn't.

Ultimately, the Real Housewives haven't innovated so much as they've tapped into the tried and true formula for entertaining, compelling television.

[quartermainefan]

No. Soap operas, as crappy as they often are, are still shows with paid writers and actors and people trying to do stuff. The Houswives (and their cousins the mob wives, baseball wives, basketball wives, and whatever other kind of wives there are, are all complete wastes of time that these magazines should be ashamed to cover.

To watch this crap is to shame oneself.

[JackPeyton]

Please, lets not act is soap operas are a high art form. They are a tv show made to entertain, just like any other tv show -- reality shows included. Housewives does it better than any soap has in over a decade.

[dragonflies]

I don't get the attraction with these shows. They're just not interesting at all.

[teplin]

These shows don't appeal to me at all, either. They are indeed freak shows, as earlier posters wrote, just modern-day versions of traveling circuses with their bearded ladies and rubber-limbed men. I can't wait until they burn themselves out.

[DRW50]

I like the way you put this. From your view it does have more of a soap element, and more individual styles. It's when these shows are pitched as being monolithic that I become more annoyed with them, because I think some of them are a mess, and rely on stuff that never should be allowed (like the Salihis crashing the White House dinner).

Thanks for telling me who that was in OC.

[JaneAusten]

I think I have come to the conclusion traditional soap fans are snobs(and I include myself in that). We all criticize and complain about these shows as if the traditional soaps are some high art form. Whats amusuing to me (and I am not referencing anyone here more in general terms) are the things people crow about on soaps as soapy like catfights between bitchy women, who amazingly enough are the actresses deemed as the best actresses on soaps, look down when these reality shows do the same things.

Everything yes everything has a shelf life. The things that folks believe made soaps special weren't growing the viewing audience either. Sitcoms, crime dramas, medical programs, and yes primetime soaps have died out and reinvented themselves several times over the past decades. Showrunners are a good part of the issue but so is the nostaligia people yearn for in a way. Good shows get cancelled everyday. Mary Tyler Moore retained quality in terms of her show as an example, but the audience moved on. Its rare for an audience to remain loyal up to the end. THe exceptions are shows like MASH which was more a dramedy than comedy in later years. And was also smart enough to go out on top.

Real Housewives might not be high art or at times even not realistic, but they are entertaining and yes guess what, even they will have their own shelf life. And real life drama is always more compelling than manufactured drama. Explain the interest in OJ's trial or the recent Casey Anthony trial.

I would love to know how people feel about the Mexican Novellas because none of them focus on great acting, its all camp, OTT drama, catfights, love scenes, and divas and they are entertaining to say the least. And they focus on women for the most part. But they also do at least attempt to tell more relevant stories in the midst of all this and not endless WTD's and baby switches either.

[DRW50]

I guess it depends on what type of soap you enjoy. I enjoy bitchy female characters but generally I like the soaps when they're more restrained and trying to have a more balanced message, like what they used to be in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's. That's why I will always enjoy Knots Landing more than Dynasty (as much as I enjoy parts of Dynasty) - ultimately, after some fun moments, as time goes on, a catfight will seem more and more forced and false. Even by the end of Dynasty, you had the women saying, "Why are we doing this?" and laughing it off.

I think the celebrity trials have become as manufactured, at least in media coverage, as the worst of soaps. Nothing about this connects to reality - that's why you had some woman at a gas station attacked because somebody thought she was Casey.

[KMan101]

I did watch the first two seasons of the OC, and liked it. It wasn't the same after that. I have only seen bits and pieces of other Housewives series but I don't particularly care for it.

The Real Housewives was only created after Desperate Housewives debuted. So it was a reality show mimicking a soap.

Soaps inspired a lot of things. Right now, soaps are watered down. They're tame. Back in the 70s and 80s you had wild and controversial storylines. We see nothing of that. And the shows on cable and primetime that are hits? They have 30-40-50+ leads! Even the Housewives are in that age bracket! Soaps got away from "older veterans" in favor of pushing the current new thing hoping to recapture the hits of the past. Instead of just storytelling, it's plot, bad acting, no direction ... soaps aren't innovative anymore. They don't really try to modernize themselves.

Soaps were popular for peeling away at human emotions and psychological ramifications of storylines. You get that from a reality show (scripted or not). THAT is what the audience wants that the audience isn't getting.

And I get advertisers are catering to the younger generation (which I'm a part of) but you can't ignore the past, either.

[Gray Bunny]

I got into the Housewives franchise in the past 6 months simply because my partner introduced me to it and since he had started sitting through *my* soaps (he likes Days of Our Lives), I started watching when his were on. And sure enough, I got hooked on just about all of them. I started with Atlanta (LOVE me some NeNe Leakes! I watched Celebrity Apprentice this year just to see her, LOL) and then got hooked on Beverly Hills (LOVE Lisa!). I tried to not get interested in New Jersey or New York, but sure enough I love the drama of Teresa and the no-nonsense tells-it-like-it-is Caroline (she's the only sensible woman of ALL the Real Housewives of any show) and I love the annoying but hilarious Ramona of NYC, along with Jill and the drag-queen known as The Countess, LuAnn. I've even gone as far as buying previous seasons to catch up on Atlanta and New Jersey.

It's kind of become a tit-for-tat for me and my partner. I've told him LOTS of things about soaps (and he does seem genuinely interested; he loves Susan Lucci, and is excited to see Deidre Hall back on DAYS because he knows I love her) so it's natural that I got involved in some of his shows. But there's definitely more excitement and drama and anticipation when we watch the Real Housewives as opposed to the hum-drum of daytime soaps.

I *do* have my limits though. I will NOT get involved with Mob Wives, Bad Girls Club, or Basketball Wives (although I saw that brawl from the last season's finale... "you're not a mother-f**kin' factor bitch!" LOL)

[KMan101]

Mob Wives is actually not bad, I hate to admit it, LOL. I've seen a few episodes.

[Paul Raven]

The hook with these shows is they're supposedly 'real' but are so obviously fake,it's annoying. I can see how people can get into them,but I feel exploited and manipulated (sounding like Nikki Newman!) however,I do allow myself a weekly dose of Flipping Out.

If presented as scripted,they would be laughed off the air.

Networks are loving these shows-they're incredibly cheap and get publicity.

[JackPeyton]

Im pretty sure anyone who watches these knows they are at least partially faked/staged/amped up for drama. The hook for these shows are watching these female leads deal with all the drama in their lives - relationships with family, friends, lovers. Money issues, good or bad. Starting over, careers, etc. This is why people tune in, this is why they keep watching. Not to mention when fans dont like something or someone, Bravo changes it. And these shows are not as fake as they may seem, if you actually pay attention to any of the housewives, a lot of the situations are real, they just up the drama factor.

The Hills and Lagina Beach on MTV were another case of this. Was this a documentary 100% true to life show? No. Of course now. However it was a reality show with lots of authentic, true to life drama amped up for tv. For both of these shows, i have never related to any other show or characters in my age range more. They provided something soaps have tried to do for years and failed at.

The purpose of a tv show is to entertain. Be it on HBO/AMC/Showtime, a Network, Bravo, etc.. and be it scripted drama, scripted comedy, game show, talk show or reality show. The Real Housewives are a hit because they entertain. And to answer the original question, yes they have replaced soap operas in a way. No, not toatlly, but they used what soaps were most known for - female stories and high drama - and ran with it in a way soaps have not in a very, very long time.