'Vanderpump Rules' Is Back and I'm Feeling Suspicious

Bravo released the new trailer for the reboot of Vanderpump Rules, after Scandoval brought wreckage on the House of Pump back in 2023. The aftermath of Tom Sandoval's affair with Raquel Leviss not only toppled a reality television empire, but catapulted Ariana Madix to superstardom and spawned the heir apparent to its empty throne: The Valley.

For well over a year, the show was put on "pause" while executive producer Alex Baskin and the big-wigs at Bravo decided what to do with the smoldering remains of their once hottest show. The end result, with help from restauranteur and fellow executive producer Lisa Vanderpump, was a completely rebooted version of the show with an entirely new, totally disconnected cast.

The press release for the trailer reads: "This season on Vanderpump Rules, the deep-rooted group of friends, frenemies and lovers that have been working for Lisa Vanderpump at SUR for years are shaking things up. Despite new uniforms and a few fresh faces in the mix, the drama remains as messy and complicated as ever."

The reboot likewise premieres Tuesday, December 2 exclusively on Bravo, with episodes streaming next day on Peacock.

As they say in the trailer, some of them have been working for Vanderpump Enterprises for a few years now, which is promising, seeing as her nightlife hotspots are notorious for attracting people specifically looking to get cast on a hit reality television show. This new crop of SURvers seem the same type of personality, but at least they had to work for their supper.

Despite the promising drama plastered across the trailer, I can't help but feel an implacable sense of suspicion towards these newbies. It's a feeling that is only heightened by the re-use of the title, Vanderpump Rules, for a show quite literally nothing like the original. Vanderpump Rules was premiered alongside a season three episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, literally woven into the fabric of its parent show via Scheana Shay and the cast of characters around her and Lisa Vanderpump at the upstart WeHo restaurant SUR.

It's early seasons were woven into concurrent plot lines on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and once its cast found their sea legs, their decade-long friendships prior to filming became the backbone for one of the defining reality television juggernauts of the 2010s. It not only became one of Bravo's most widely celebrated "cult classics," it helped usher in an entirely new generation of viewer's to the channels aging fanbase.

To think that they can simply scrub the cast and start over fresh under the same moniker isn't a sore spot for me because of my own self-important loyalty to what was before. It is a suspicion that Bravo, Baskin, and Vanderpump do not believe in these upstarts to stand on their own the way they first believed in that original crop of cast members, desperate to tear each other apart in a never-ending quest for infamy.

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps they have held this cast in the wings for over a year precisely because they saw the potential for them to become silver screen sensations. Baskin was similarly correct in his estimations of The Valley, another show that suffered the suspicions of myself and other seasoned critics in its first season.

I'd like to be wrong again, if only just this once. In the meantime, let's all raise our glasses high — this one's for the original cast of Vanderpump Rules tonight.

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