Television has gotten pretty dark. Tech dystopias, from Black Mirror to Severance, are our water-cooler shows. The true-crime factory pumps out more real-life nightmares every day. Millions of viewers are bingeing on post-apocalyptic misery, whether it takes the shape of The Last of Us’ fungal wasteland or Silo’s crumbling underground city or the sterile billionaires’ stronghold in Paradise. Even realistic dramas increasingly rely on a murder-mystery element to build suspense. And yet, somehow, the most depressing show on TV—with the exception of any news broadcast, at least—is a reality soap about bougie couples in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
I am, of course, talking about Bravo’s The Valley, the Vanderpump Rules spinoff that follows some of the latter series’ most notorious characters from the clubstaraunt to the cul-de-sac. Like the early seasons of Vanderpump, as well as the network’s stalwart Real Housewives and Below Deck franchises, The Valley was introduced as light entertainment. In this case, the comedy inherent in the premise was that of hard-partying, adulthood-resisting millennial Angelenos adjusting to marriage, mortgage payments, and parenthood. (The original opening credits placed the couples in kitschy front-yard tableaux, hoisting trash bags or raking leaves.) Instead, viewers have spent two seasons looking on in horror as many of the cast members have torn their own lives and families apart, with public scrutiny only adding heat to the crucible. Far from entertaining, the show has become genuinely painful to watch. Now, as its second season ends in a trilogy of miserable reunion episodes, I wish Bravo would just pull the plug.
The series premiere, which aired last March, suggests what producers initially envisioned as the tone of the show. Like the Housewives, this docusoap would center on the big personalities and minor melodramas of a so-called friend group—a term of art for a reality TV cast that may or may not actually…
