Contrary to popular misconception, “Vanderpump” is not about Lisa Vanderpump, a former Bravo housewife. It started as a series about waiters and bartenders who lived in crummy apartments around Hollywood and most of whom wanted to become actors. That dream didn’t come to fruition, but they became reality TV stars. For a while, this ruined the show. It became less honest. The actors still worked shifts at a restaurant, but in reality they drove fancy cars and bought houses for $2 million. Once the show stopped pretending that nothing had changed, it turned out that a reality show about reality stars was no less interesting. In the last season alone, there was “Scandoval,” in which Sandoval, a reality TV star approaching fifty, began starting a cover band, opening a bar and sleeping with Leviss, a former beauty queen. A couple present in the series since the first season finally decided to divorce, making the woman understand that she might never have children. And a woman who once boasted that her private jet lifestyle was financed by Randall Emmett, the direct-to-video producer, left him and became the breadwinner as she fought for custody of their daughter.
Alex Baskin, executive producer of “Vanderpump,” developed it as a spinoff of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” in which Vanderpump was the owner of several mediocre restaurants. Baskin noticed that SUR, which stands for “Sexy Unique Restaurant,” did indeed have a sexy and unique atmosphere. In 2011, he sent a screenshot of SUR’s website — featuring Vanderpump on a throne surrounded by her beautiful staff — to Andy Cohen, who was then Bravo’s vice president for original programming. The network provided Baskin with a small budget to explore the idea. What Baskin discovered was an incestuous group of friends in which everyone lived or slept with each other. “It was everything you look for in a TV show,” Baskin told me. “It just hit me in the face.”
At the time, prestige television was booming and writers’ rooms all over Hollywood were too concerned with chasing critical approval rather than audiences and revenue. In this context, “Vanderpump” was an interesting alternative. Yes, it looked and acted like reality TV, but at its core it was more like the big scripted shows of the 1990s in that it was about a group of friends living their lives, hanging out, abandoning their 20-year-old hopes for the future. realities of thirty. It relied on tried-and-true screenwriting principles: good, unexpected stories about quirky characters going through cycles of jealousy, regret, insecurity, and longing.
The show was also a brilliant premise, commercially speaking. The television business has guided the masses to the real world and vice versa. You can watch Sandoval and his friends on TV, then stop by and ask him to make you a “Pumptini”. The main draw of the series was the cheating scandals, of which there were three by the end of the second season. As the show takes place more outside the restaurant, he goes through an identity crisis. In 2020, it was further weakened by the pandemic and the departure of four cast members due to past racist incidents and resurfaced social media posts. As early as season 9, rumors were swirling that “Vanderpump” was on the verge of being canceled. “We were limping,” Baskin told me. The following season, “Scandoval” fell into Bravo’s lap.
The show’s producers treated it as a news report. Late on the evening of March 1, 2023, when principal photography for the 10th season had wrapped and episodes had already aired, Sandoval was performing a new single with his band when his phone fell out of his pocket. Madix opened it to discover an intimate recording of Leviss. The next morning, Madix informed the show’s talent producer, who called the showrunner, who called Baskin, who called Bravo, who rushed to approve the budgets. On March 3, crews were pulled from another Bravo set and cameras were brought back on to capture the fallout while the cast dealt with the case.