SO much desperation, so little time.
Yes, TV’s got fake “Desperate Housewives” and it’s got real, pathologically desperate housewives.
The real housewives of “The Real Housewives of the O.C.” Bravo’s return reality series, which debuts tonight, fall strictly into the latter.
While it’s supposed to be reality TV, only some of it is real, while a whole lot of it is plastic.
What’s plastic, of course, is their hilariously large, silicone boobs, parts or all of their faces – some of which look like they were fashioned out of construction paper – and the credit cards they carry around to validate their existences.
What’s real are their dysfunctional relationships, their almost universally spoiled families, featuring kids who’ve been given everything – except values. The fact that they have zero manners and less respect is so appalling it’s scary.
The housewives’ relationships with their various men are nearly as creepy. Yet, the conceit here is that these women honestly believe that people tune in because they crave to live like them – in cheek-by-jowl McMansions filled with tension and fighting.
While the reality series likes to imply that these five real women were actually friends before the cameras started rolling – that’s not real either.
And neither is the fact that one of them – Lauri – complains that her ex left her and the kids penniless. Her ex-husband has called The Post several times, in fact, offering to send court papers which he says, prove just the opposite.
The “cast” includes Jo, a 26-year-old living with an older, very handsome man with kids. She thinks that the greatest thing a woman can hope for is to be invited to the creepy Playboy mansion party with its Viagra-fueled old satyr. Her guy, Slade, thinks the greatest thing is to be his “perfect housewife.” All too weird for words.
She and her friend attend the Playboy party in underwear, where one says to the other: “Don’t show your butt – it will be classier like that.”
Hello? Planet Earth?
Vicki is a mother who is constantly on her kids about one thing or another and has a husband she rarely sees. Vicki lives the fast-paced glamour world of insurance. Kill me first.
Jeanna is a real estate agent in the world of $15-million homes with an ex-ballplayer husband – former Oakland A’s pitcher Matt Keough- who is always away and three very handsome kids who fight constantly.
The boys are under constant pressure to become professional baseball players – whether they like it or not.
Tammy, the newest “desperate,” is a single mom trying to get back on her feet after her house was destroyed in a flood. Her 20-year daughter gets tattoos for a hobby and has a 36-year-old, bald boyfriend.
Lauri has finally nailed another rich one – a guy with four kids of his own. She travels to Europe while her son is off in a state-run reform school and her daughter stays home to tend to the cats.
See what I mean? So desperate it’s mesmerizing.
“The Real Housewives of the O.C.”
Tonight at 10 on Bravo