How can anyone on the new series The Vineyard concentrate with all that contemporary soft rock playing in their ears?
Oh wait. The music is added afterward. The people in the show can’t hear it. Never mind.
Either way, the cast members on The Vineyard – which debuts Tuesday, June 23 across Canada on ABC Spark – aren’t really dancing to their own tune.
Reality TV has been around long enough now that you could consider The Vineyard to be a throwback show.
It reminds you of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and its spinoff, The Hills. And although it’s hard to believe, Laguna Beach debuted almost a decade ago, in 2004.
Like those previous shows, The Vineyard truly exists in the middle ground between reality TV and scripted TV. The members of the cast aren’t actors, so that’s the reality part of it. But the scenes and situations obviously are set up.
Originating on ABC Family in the United States, The Vineyard is fairly tame by modern reality-TV standards. It’s not gross. It’s not crude. It’s not profane. Sure, there are scantily clad babes and hunks everywhere, but how quickly you get used to that will determine whether or not you find The Vineyard to be kind of bland.
Dubbed a docu-series, The Vineyard is set against the idyllic backdrop of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Every summer the “wash-ashores” arrive, mostly rich kids, or if not rich, at least in a position where they can have a summer of shenanigans like this. The “wash-ashores” mix with the locals, sometimes uneasily.
If you’ve ever seen the scripted drama Revenge, with airs on ABC and City, that’s kind of the world we’re talking about. That is, if you took anyone over, say, 26 years of age out of that series.
The initial focus of The Vineyard is Katie Tardif, who essentially has come to get her head straight, ponder her future with her current boyfriend (who isn’t with her) and work for a couple of friends named Jackie Lyons and Gabby Lapointe at a local tavern known as the Black Dog. However, the people in The Vineyard seem to have more time for swimming, sun-bathing and parties than anyone with actual employment responsibilities.
Katie immediately has two guys vying for her attention: An old friend, and a new guy who she describes as an “overly confident meat-head.” We all know dudes like that, right?
The Vineyard obviously is directed at an audience that was too young to watch Laguna Beach or The Hills. Maybe you’re slightly older and you really miss those shows. But do young audiences today still get off on this kind of thing, or have they long ago moved past it?
I guess what I’m getting at is, even though it’s jam-packed with startlingly attractive young people, The Vineyard actually seems kind of old-fashioned.