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House of Stassi is officially streaming on Hulu. The structure of this series feels fresh and authentic, unlike the outdated formatting seen on other series in this genre. Did Stassi Schroeder accidentally fix the reality TV formatting problem? Maybe, “and don’t you forget it” if she did.
Minus competition-based series, unscripted series have followed the same mind-numbing format for years. To start, production puts together a cast. Then, these stars go about their day together, seldom mentioning that they are on a reality TV show. And as a result, the fourth wall is rarely, if ever, broken.
For a while, this format helped create a sense of authenticity. But eventually, audiences caught on to how these series were made. And after that, this format started feeling dull, at best. But then, here comes House of Stassi, giving us the exact reverse formatting, and I have to admit, it works.
Unscripted series have grown inauthentic
Most reality TV casts consist of six to eight stars. Some are close, but several are not. Yet, they are all expected to hang out and act as if they are either friends or will soon be friends, at least in the first few episodes. Then, these so-called friends pretend not to see the cameras as they recall events and add details to their storylines, all while pretending like the producers are not guiding their words or thoughts, or even goading their reactions, just off-screen.
It’s produced, all of it. Audiences know this now, and think of it as fake. As a result, reality TV has started feeling phony, at best. And as it turns out, at least according to several former reality TV stars, fraud is actually the name of the reality TV game.
ALLEGEDLY, producers encourage cast members to self-produce. And sometimes, the stars themselves even get together before filming, planning takedowns, storylines, and drama. The problem is, viewers see these things clearly now. As such, what used to be a fun genre to watch is now falling flat across the board, thanks to these inauthentic pinpoints.
House of Stassi features an actual friend group and the authentic breaking of the fourth wall
The cast of House of Stassi centers around Stassi, her family, and her actual friend group. Yes, at the start of filming, Stassi and Katie Maloney were not exactly close. But unlike other series, both of these women broke the fourth wall right from the jump, making their fragile friendship actually make sense within the confines of this series.
For Stassi, she straight-up admitted her need for Katie. She acknowledged that this was a show. And as such, she needed a reality TV veteran to come alongside her to bring in the ratings.
As for Katie, she did the same, but on the opposite end. Katie conceded staying away from this genre for years, not wanting “toxic” drama to infiltrate her mostly peaceful life after Vanderpump Rules. On this same topic, both girls also broke the fourth wall during one of their first scenes, calling out VPR producers for safeguarding the men, which, YES.
Finally, Stassi spoke directly to production, narrating her spiraling midway through her collapse(s). This type of (semi) self-awareness is exactly what’s been missing from reality TV: the sense that someone understands how they’re coming across and isn’t hiding from it. With all of these formatting choices in place, this series landed as one of the most naturally authentic ones in years.
House of Stassi accidentally fixed the reality TV formatting problem; however, it does have a pacing issue
House of Stassi was not faultless, however. The scenes with Stassi and her husband, Beau Clark, were incredibly hard to watch. Beau left his career in casting to be a stay-at-home father. This made Beau feel like “a 1950s housewife,” he admitted, before eventually returning to work toward the end of House of Stassi.
During the finale, Stassi crashed out, telling Beau that she paid for everything, so he had no right to complain. If a man said this, heads would roll. That said, if this were the only messy storyline, it might be easier to cut this series some slack. But it wasn’t.
Instead, each episode featured a new fight. This back-to-back conflict structure was exhausting. Also, each problem received equal weight and screen time. Not every problem can be the big one, because in doing so, we lose the peaks and valleys that usually make a season feel like it’s going somewhere.
But this one is easy to solve. And overall, the format of House of Stassi is one this writer would love to see more of moving forward.
House of Stassi streams on Hulu.
TELL US – HAVE YOU WATCHED HOUSE OF STASSI? DO YOU PREFER THE FORMATTING OF THIS SERIES?
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