In the reality TV history books, few shows manage the feat of being both treasured and cancelled after one season.
My own personal list of “one-season wonders” is brief but every Bravo-holic – the name for devotees of the US network that’s home to a universe of reality TV – has their own. (OK, fine: mine includes Gallery Girls, a show about deluded twentysomethings trying to stake a claim in Manhattan’s competitive art scene; NYC Prep, the ill-advised real-life take on Gossip Girl; and High Society, a series that opens with future-Real Housewife Tinsley Mortimer greeting Harvey Weinstein at a party and only goes downhill from there – thanks for asking.)
Even rarer than a beloved and short-lived series is one that rises from the ashes many years after cancellation. It happened in 2021, when The Real Housewives of Miami was resurrected after eight years in the ground. And now, closer to home, a new phoenix has spread its wings. Six years after its first season aired on Arena, The Real Housewives of Sydney is back.
During its last lap, RHoS introduced us to a mountain of unforgettable people, concepts and cocktails. There was Matty the cosmetic injector, who thought eating too much caviar might turn her into a lesbian; the Skinny Bitch cocktail (AKA a vodka soda) popularised by Victoria Rees, who tossed a co-star’s shawl into the harbour upon their first meeting; and Athena X – the owner of that shawl – who believed her artwork was “at least 100 years ahead of its time”.
Perhaps most notable among the Sydney housewives was Lisa Oldfield, a doomsday prepper who, at the time of filming, was married to the One Nation co-founder David Oldfield. She was fresh from spinal surgery and under the influence of both Endone and champagne during most of her scenes – including the one where the women went on a tropical holiday and she “got caught in a current and nearly fuckin’ drowned” before being rescued by a “morbidly obese guy on a kayak towing a giant inflatable swan”.
RHoS was, to put it simply, brilliant. It was crude and inane, the fights were shallow and bizarre, and almost every cast member arrived like a tornado and left just as much destruction in their wake. But their behaviour and language were reportedly too nasty for US viewers to embrace, and the pin was pulled.
And so season two of RHoS, a Binge original series that premieres tonight, operates almost like a reboot. Two of the previous cast are here: there’s former model Krissy Marsh, who shares her $30m Double Bay manse with her husband and their daughters, one of whom seems to be primed to follow in Gigi Hadid’s nepo-baby-model-daughter-of-a-Real-Housewife footsteps. Former Miss Australia and “career mum” Nicole O’Neil also makes a return, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that she does something revolutionary and makes a modicum of dramatic impact this season.
Joining them is a fresh and promising quintet of catchphrase machines. There’s Kate Adams, self-made gazillionaire Bondi vet who’s not the Bondi Vet but whose clinic is called Bondi Vet. Terry Biviano is the socialite wife of retired Sydney Roosters player Anthony Minichiello and the host of a lunch in episode one that ends with the women being made to dance while a man, unfortunately, plays a saxophone.
We also meet Caroline Gaultier, who is unfussed when Marsh compares her looks to those of a porn star and reportedly does the most chilling thing any reality TV star can do: she goes to Burning Man (see also: Davina from Selling Sunset); and the former TV host and owner of a wellness brand (a very Housewives endeavour), Sally Obermeder.
Hot contender for early breakout star of the new crop is Victoria Montano, who runs a clothing label selling $169 leggings and racoon fur jackets. In her opening montage, she describes herself thusly: “I am one of the last three women in the eastern suburbs of Sydney that has retained my nose, my lips and my breasts from birth. We are soon to be extinct. I think David Attenborough … should be down in Double Bay working on that.”
When reality TV producers get it right, there are just enough truth-tellers to sprinkle a little actual reality into the mix, along with the delusional, the out of touch and the messy pot-stirrers. In the opening moments of the new season premiere, Marsh describes Sydney’s wealthy eastern suburbs as “a very small pond with some very big fish”.
I’m hooked already.
The Real Housewives of Sydney is available on Binge and Foxtel
