I have good news/bad news, depending, I guess, on who you are and how you feel about Utah-based reality shows.
Me personally? I’m a little tired. After six seasons of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” one flop season of “Sold on SLC,” three seasons of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a number of tangos and foxtrots from a couple of those Mormon Wives on “Dancing With The Stars” and a leading role on Broadway, plus a looming “Bachelorette” season featuring Taylor Frankie Paul, I, as a viewer, feel a bit overextended. And as someone who gave herself the job of covering all of these shows and people, I’m working time and a half.
So when a casting call hit my inbox describing the inception of yet another Utah-based reality show, I groaned. Because how many more of these can we possibly do? How many more friend groups are there in Utah that feature beautiful women who own designer bags and are willing to fight on camera? Surely by now every Swig franchise location, school pickup line and pilates studio has been scoured for potential reality TV stars. Our resources must be drained.
Or so I thought.
But then I read the casting call and wondered if this new series might be an exciting departure from the shows we’ve seen so far.
It reads, “We are looking for secret worlds, interesting subcultures, unique businesses, big personalities, and even bigger drama.” Then it provides some possible examples of those “secret worlds”:
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Competitive dance studios
To be clear, I would, excitedly, watch every single one of those shows, despite my earlier protestations regarding my time and energy. In fact, I already watch a lot of shows about a lot of those worlds in other places. Everything I’ve learned about the Caribbean and luxury yachting comes from “Below Deck” and everything I’ve learned about LA and the food service industry comes from “Vanderpump Rules.” The same goes for competitive dance and “Dance Moms.” And I’m just not sure we’re going to create anything better than any of those iconic masterpieces.
Which makes me think, maybe we should broaden the scope a bit to find subjects that can truly only be found in Utah for Bravo, Hulu, or whatever streaming service is backing this latest project (the website attached to the casting call doesn’t specify).
The website does get pretty specific about what type of groups might be appealing for casting directors. It reads, “Are you a part of, connected to, or have an affinity for a world most people don’t see or understand?
Some examples could include:
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A diverse or multicultural friend group in Utah
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Evangelical or deeply religious circles
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Elite dance studios where competition is everything
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Tight-knit groups shaped by divorce and blended families
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A loud, dynamic or dysfunctional friend group
There are a few of these descriptors that I can’t speak to given my life experience as a white person with the dance skills of an inebriated rhinoceros. And at this point of my life I don’t have a loud, dynamic or dysfunctional friend group so much as a list of pals whom I feel lucky if I see once or twice a year after we’ve all rescheduled six times.
So there’s really only one of those communities that I have any experience with and that’s the deeply religious. I don’t necessarily think of myself as deeply religious, mostly because I don’t know the difference between the Corinthians, but I know compared to those who aren’t involved with a particular faith, going to church every Sunday and being involved with sometimes multiple activities a week seems VERY religious.
What I’m saying is that I’m somewhat of an expert in Utah’s religious climate, relatively, and I do have an idea for a show.
It’s called “Saved Pews” and it features the families who sit on the same benches every week during church. Each episode would be a deep dive into that family’s history with the bench, possibly going back generations. We would unpack how they decided to sit there for the first time and how they knew it was where they wanted to sit for every week thereafter. Also how they manage to get to 9 a.m. church on time to secure said bench instead of sneaking in the back 10 minutes late every single week.
I understand that reality television needs manufactured drama to thrive, and there isn’t a lot of inherent drama in families sitting quietly in church for an hour every week, except for maybe the occasional riveting game of tic-tac-toe. But what if I told you every once in a while there are mission farewells and homecomings and sometimes baby blessings and those things bring in visitors who like to sit near the front, thus displacing the usual families? Or that sometimes that family goes out of town and some other family claims the pew as their own while they are away and when they return a Sunday later another family is sitting in their spot? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
Sure, The “Real Housewives” have cast trips to the Italy and “Secret Lives” has multiple cheating scandals, but “Saved Pews” has what the people really want — families of seven occasionally sitting on hard plastic chairs instead of the upholstery they’re used to. Tell me that won’t sell.
The casting call webpage reads, “If your world feels intense, competitive, or impossible to explain from the outside, we want to hear from you.” And I think I just accidentally proved that this world is impossible to explain from the outside. So they will be hearing from me.
