You Just Get Lucky

What can I say about this week's episode other than I love it! Granted, it wasn’t so fun the night we shot Camille’s dinner party, but months later, it still makes me laugh. I’m not trying to make light of any of the drama the women went through. There were a lot of tears and hurt feelings that came out of that night. But as an episode of a reality show, it’s pretty much an instant classic as far as I’m concerned. And that’s because it’s real. As I stated in my first blog, I’ve worked as a writer on scripted programs before. But never in a million years would I have thought to write a script that would be as wacky, and outrageous, and over-the-top as what happened at Camille’s that night, because it wouldn’t seem believable! I bring this up because I’ve seen a slew of comments both on my blog, but also around the Internet, questioning if our show is real or is it secretly scripted? It’s a common question of reality shows–and I certainly can’t speak for every reality show out there–but our show is very real. Specifically, here is a comment to my last blog, submitted by someone who logged on as “Hmmm.” “Wonder if you will dare to post this/answer this . . . So saw someone noted that Kim & Kyle's outfits in the ‘before’ the blind date facial scene and the ‘after’ blind date lunch are exactly the same. So a little rearrangement by the editors or is this so called reality not so real and scripted like many people seem to suspect?” Good catch, Hmmm! Kim and Kyle’s lunch and trip to the spa were indeed filmed on the same day – which is why they are wearing the same clothing. We originally planned on having both sequences be in the same episode (107), but once we were in the edit, we realized there wasn’t enough room for both, so we moved the lunch to 108. By the way, our Bravo exec wants you to know that they never noticed that on their end–so good eye! To me, that proves we are not scripted because if we were, we would’ve known the sequences would wind up in separate shows and would’ve had Kim and Kyle change outfits. Another common question about “is it real,” I saw in the blogosphere is the stranger who chats Lisa up in the DMV. Lots of people thought he was too good to be true to be just some random guy who is a nuisance to Lisa. What can I say? Sometimes, you just get lucky. But I will say this: sometimes putting a camera in someone’s face makes them act out more than normal. Think about your Christmas gatherings when someone busts out a video camera. Some people shy away from the camera (like me) while others ham it up. Same goes for taping a reality show. Meaning, had there been no camera there, the random guy might never have talked to Lisa. But we were, so he did. On to this week’s episode, which all came together because of very real elements that created the perfect storm at Camille’s dinner party. First off, the dinner party happened less than two weeks after the big Kyle-Camille argument in New York. Camille opted to not attend the party at Mohammed’s, so this was the first time all the ladies were going to be together since New York. To say they were nervous about it is a gross understatement. Every one of them, even Adrienne, who had not witnessed the NY fight, wound up about attending this dinner. Camille and Kelsey’s production company produces the TV show Medium. Camille is good friends with Allison Dubois, the real life medium that the show is based on. All season, Camille had wanted to include Allison in one of our shoots because she thinks Allison has such an interesting life. There was no secret motive on our part to invite Allison to stir up trouble. Same goes for Faye Resnick attending the dinner. She really did have plans with Kyle on the night of the dinner, so her attendance was just as Kyle explained. Nothing sinister there, either. As the night of Camille’s dinner party grew closer, I heard the same question over and over from the women. “You’re expecting us to fight again, aren’t you?” “Nope,” I’d say. “We’re expecting you to go to a dinner party. You can talk about whatever you want.” Did I expect the topic of the New York fight to come up? Absolutely. Everyone’s emotions were still running high, and Kyle and Camille had not budged an inch on the inciting comment. So yeah, with Camille and Kyle still so firmly entrenched in their opposing views, I figured it was going to come up. But I didn’t want to pressure the ladies into thinking that’s all I cared about, because I knew that would make them clam up. Instead, we just went about our jobs. And watched it all unfold. Right down to the sprinklers going off as the ladies left Camille’s house. If the producers had instigated that, it would’ve felt heavy-handed and forced. But we didn’t turn the sprinklers on. They are set on a timer to go off at a certain time, which just happened to be when our ladies walked outside. Like I said, sometimes you just get lucky. Until next week.