I am – Hercules!!


“High Society” is a reality show about horrible rich Manhattanites in the orbit of a recently divorced 34-year-old handbag designer in the process of moving from Upper East Side to Midtown. To my eyes it is considerably less tedious and slightly less inauthentic than the MTV hit “The Hills,” which covers the same territory on the West Coast (and typically pulls a bigger audience that a lot of shows on the CW).

If you like "The Hills" or "Jersey Shore" or "The Real Housewives," I suspect you'll like this as well. And it could prove a good companion for “America’s Next Top Model,” which precedes it.

Entertainment Weekly says:

… Sorry, Upper East Siders, real society would never be so trashy. …

The New York Daily News says:

… Not all Mortimer's posse seems shallow or unpleasant. But collectively they feel like the characters from all those nasty and wonderful 1960s Rolling Stones songs about neurotic rich girls. If only they were as interesting. … In the end, this is a drama we can live without.

The Los Angeles Times says:

… I will do them the favor of not believing them to be quite as bad as they appear, but even so it takes work to see them as anything but totally pathetic gasbags. … Well, I may just be a cranky old dude, but I am not charmed by this stuff; Spencer Pratt is just a prat to me, and though I wish you well, Tinsley, in your new life, I will be happy to think no more about your friends, starting now.

The Chicago Sun-Times says:

Having watched at least every female-oriented reality show of this century and the last, I can tell you this: In America, the most privileged heiress is just as insecure, self-absorbed, ill-mannered, vapid, loathsome and desperate as any "Flavor of Love" reject. These reality shows have something to teach us, and it's this: our common denominator is far lower than we feared. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… an awful show about awful people. … Yes, I understand the appeal of this type of show is that it allows the viewer to feel superior to the people on screen. But is our collective self-esteem really so low to warrant giving these horrible people air time? Simply put, they do not deserve a TV platform to showcase their boorish behavior and they're certainly not worthy of viewers' attention.

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… drek-tastic … Clearly, the only function of the show is to make Tinsley (who runs a handbag company) look like a valuable, upright member of society. …

Variety says:

… wants to be "Sex and the City" on the cheap, but every beat of the first two episodes is as subtle as a poke (or in one case, an errantly thrown glass of whiskey) in the eye. Mostly, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish this generation's parents had practiced birth control more aggressively. …

9:30 p.m. Wednesday. The CW.

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