The hit Bravo reality series “Vanderpump Rules,” which originally chronicled the high jinks of the staff at the stylish West Hollywood restaurant Sur, returned on Tuesday for its 12th season, amid much fanfare and gossip.
But things looked a lot different this time: After 11 seasons of working, living, loving and fighting together, the long-running original cast was replaced with a whole new crop of Gen Z servers — or, as they’re known to fans, Sur-vers.
The appeal of the original cast had proved to be surprisingly durable across the years, aided in recent seasons by a cheating scandal — known as “Scandoval” — that drove a significant ratings bump. The fallout from that scandal, in which the cast member Tom Sandoval was caught cheating on his longtime partner, Ariana Madix, with a co-star, made “Vanderpump” must-see reality TV.
But it also made for complications among the members of a cast that had already grown up significantly, changing much about the show’s original dynamics. Several had gotten married and had kids. Many had moved to the Valley. It had been ages since most of them suited up and served a Pumptini. The show’s producers, including the restaurant’s part-owner Lisa Vanderpump, formerly of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” decided it was time for a change.
In this new season, the show goes back to its roots. The cast members are younger, broker and once again actually work at Sur.
But can lightning strike the same place twice? Can this new cast capture the same dysfunctional magic that for nearly 13 years has kept “Vanderpump Rules” an addicting reality-TV train wreck? Here are a few takeaways from the Season 12 premiere.
Fame is the game.
When it comes to staffing, Sur has a type, and that type is Hollywood hopefuls. Among the original crew members — most of whom (save for Tom Schwartz) were already working at the restaurant before production began — there were aspiring actors and models looking for their big break, and “Vanderpump Rules” turned out to be it. Sandoval and Kristen Doute had starred in a few B-movie horror flicks; Sandoval, Schwartz and Jax Taylor were all working models; Scheana Shay sought a singing career; and Katie Maloney had dreams of being a music industry mogul.
Now, more than a decade later, virtually all of them are at least reality-show famous. But Stassi Schroeder, Shay, Maloney, Lala Kent and Doute have all published books, started podcasts or both. Sandoval started a band. And no one has been more successful than Madix, who starred on Broadway and currently hosts “Love Island.”
This new cast is full of similar Los Angeles transplants looking to make it big. Two of the newbies, Marcus Johnson and Shayne Davis, like their male predecessors, are models, and Natalie Maguire already has an IMDb page.
It stands to reason that a big part of landing a gig at Sur is its proximity to fame. Unlike with the first cast, the new one already has proof that the series can be a bona fide star maker.
Some things haven’t changed.
Sure, this might be a new cast, but there seems to be a formula at work. Originally, “Vanderpump” centered on Schroeder, the Sur waitress who the show’s executive producer Bill Langworthy once said was most ready to carry a story.
Now, that mantle appears to have been taken up by Maguire, who, intentionally or not, evokes Schroeder’s self-absorbed, man-eater persona.
At the same time, Marcus Johnson and Shayne Davis are already slotting comfortably into the “Tom and Tom” buddy-comedy role once occupied by Sandoval and Schwartz.
Lisa Vanderpump is back where she belongs.
Vanderpump herself is back at the center, making good on the show’s promise that she will “rule.”
In recent seasons, Vanderpump, no longer the boss of most of the original cast, was relegated mostly to the role of intermittent narrator. In Season 12, she is once again front and center in the scenes, scolding and disciplining her unruly staff.
Within the first few minutes of the premiere, we learn that Vanderpump has already suspended Maguire for screaming at her ex-boyfriend (and fellow Sur employee) at the bar. Later, Vanderpump lays into Johnson in the middle of a staff meeting for drinking on the job — an activity that was par for the course in past seasons — and kicks him out.
The show’s audience seems likely to shift.
Many members of the original cast are over 40 now. In the premiere of this new iteration, everyone’s age is not yet disclosed, but most of them seem as if they would get carded.
Rather than living in Valley McMansions, cast members are back to inhabiting grungy apartments, and the vibe is decidedly more “Zillennial.” Loyal followers from the past 11 seasons might opt out of this new one — not so much from allegiance to the originals but rather because they have grown up, too.
In one scene from the premiere, a half-drunken war breaks out over who is allowed to be friends with whom. It’s easy to imagine many longtime Gen X or Millennial fans, plenty of whom are now parents with mortgages, having trouble relating to this new wild-child cast.
If that’s the case, perhaps a whole new generation of “Vanderpump” die-hards will be born — and maybe that is for the best. After so many seasons with the same faces, it will be almost impossible for fans of the original not to compare the two casts, most likely preventing them from experiencing the joy (and schadenfreude) of watching these new cast members with fresh eyes.
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