Scene in the Tropics

Say it isn't so! #RHOM adds a few viewers on veep debate night!

Blame it on the train wreck effect, the Bravo bait and switch which duped viewers into watching straight off a preview of the brutal, blistery part deux of the reunion of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, or perhaps just general disinterest in the vice presidential debate (which had way more interesting drama and faces that actually were able to show expression--holla, Joe Biden!), but last night's 9 p.m. showing of The Real Housewives of Miami had 870,000 viewers--abysmal still, yes, but up from last week's even more abysmal 847,000. We weren't even going to post about the plummeting viewership anymore, but the addition of 23,000 viewers was worthy of a few words. Again, for perspective, the veep debate attracted approximately 51.4 million people who care about the future of this country or just wanted to see if VP Biden would do anything offensive (he did), while Project Runway, also on at 9, had 1.9 million people watching.

Ex-hubby of #RHOM's Alexia Echevarria arrested again in Miami

The ex-husband of erstwhile Real Housewives of Miami cast member Alexia Echevarria was arrested on September 13 in Miami Dade County for probation violation, according to JailBase.com. Pedro Luis Rosello was convicted of cocaine smuggling in 1992 and sentenced to 24 years in federal prison, but released after serving just four and a half years. He was arrested again in 2007 for sexual battery on a minor and sentenced to 12 years on the recently violated probation. Rosello is the father of Echevarria's son Peter, who is being investigated by Miami Beach police for punching a homeless man in the groin and then posting the video on his Facebook page. Reality TV exposure has not been kind to Echevarria, who has spent the past year focusing on the recovery of her younger son Frankie (also Rosello's), who suffered devastating injuries after a 2011 car accident.

120,000 more viewers say adios to The Real Housewives of Miami

Looks like The Real Housewives of Miami audience is shrinking faster than the post partum waistline of a bona fide Hollywood celebrity. Last night's 9 p.m. numbers were a dismal 847,000, dropping a whopping 120,000 viewers from the previous week's 967,000. This, despite the TMZification of some of the cast members (see: Joanna "I'm Not a Hooker" Krupa and Alexia Echevarria's son's heinous, criminal behavior), which failed to lure in viewers. Unlike previous weeks in which Bravo tries to catch a later crowd, there was no prime time repeat last night.

Those numbers are, again, worse than the lowest rated episode of the DC edition of the Bravo franchise (1.1 million), which was eventually canceled. Though no one offical is saying anything about cutting Miami from the network, some are saying that it looks to be inevitable. Again, for perspective, a very dubious perspective at that, Jersey Shore's season premiere last night had over 4.6 million drunk people tuning in. The horror.

#RHOM audience drops below a million, losing approximately 162,000 viewers

Last night was a big TV night, but not for the ladies of The Real Housewives of Miami, unfortunately. The show's viewership has tanked again, this time going from last week's 9 p.m. numbers of 1.025 million viewers to last night's 0.967 which, in ratings talk means 967,000 viewers. Yikes. According to BravoRatings.com, that's worse than the lowest rated episode of The Real Housewives of D.C. (1.1 million), which Bravo cancelled.

To compare, though there's really no comparison, The Real Housewives of New Jersey on Sunday scored a whopping 3.4 million viewers; Wednesday night's finale of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo brought in 2.7 million and last night's Grey's Anatomy premiere, airing at the same time as RHOM, had 11.7 million people tuning in, according to TV By the Numbers.

The RHOM rerun at 10 p.m. also lost viewers compared to last week: last week's rerun had 815,000 viewers while last night's dropped to 711,000.

Despite the numbers (or lack thereof) speaking volumes and a general apathy about the show, the Twitterverse was abuzz last night over the debut of drag personality Elaine Lancaster, who eventually gets into it with the show's main sideshow, Elsa Patton. Maybe they should have put her on the first episode and, come to think of it, on the first season? Oh well. Perhaps Lancaster's celebrity BFF Pamela Anderson can help bring in some viewers now that she has some free time on her hands after being booted from Dancing With the Stars. Stay tuned. We dare you.

The Real Housewives of Miami loses viewers in its second week

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child, it isn't. Nor is it Pawn Stars, though some would say it's alliteratively something like it). Looks like The Real Housewives of Miami is a niche novelty for a handful of viewers, most who likely come from the city of Miami, watching purely as they would a car accident on the Palmetto during rush hour. Then again, most Miamians you talk to want nothing to do with Bravo's latest. Whatever the case, the numbers were down last night from the previous premiere week.

Viewership during the 9 p.m. time slot last week was 1.066 million as compared to last night's 1.025 million. That's a loss of approximately 41,000 viewers. To the show's credit, however, the in-your-face immediate rerun aired at 10 p.m. last night attracted (or repelled) an additional 815,000 viewers or people still sleeping from that confounding, mind numbing, nonsensical texting caper "plot" of the original airing, according to TV By the Numbers.

To put it into perspective, last night's episode of Glee, the Britney one, airing against RHOM in the 9 p.m. slot, garnered a whopping 7.42 million viewers, some who may have tuned into the RHOM repeat at 10. In fairness, the Housewives don't rake in numbers like that; The Real Housewives of NYC's Monday episode brought in 1.989 million viewers. Honey Boo Boo's Wednesday night episode had 2.157 million voyeurs. When Honey Boo Boo meets Elsa Patton, the ratings will be through the roof.

The Real Housewives of Miami 2.0 gets off to a slow, rubbernecking start

The Real Housewives of Miami's premiere episode was as if the city of Miami went out on a long bender of stereotypes and spent the entire next day hurling over the toilet bowl. We've got the fiery Latinas, the smarmy, "wealthy" boyfriends, the boobs, the waterfront estates, the boobs, the models, and more boobs. As another housewife from another city famously said, "Money can't buy you class," and everyone knows that The Real Housewives franchise is to class as Teen Mom is to abstinence.

That being said, there are hints of class in some of the cast members, namely Lea Black, wife of famous attorney Roy and about whom many wonder what the hell she is doing on the show besides promoting her skin care line (or surgeon) that has obviously been very good to her. In terms of class, Black is truly out of her element. But we'll see if that remains so as the trainwreck starts careening out of control off the track.

With no need to do a recap of the dizzying, mostly dull first episode, it's easy to sum most of the women up: professionals (some, allegedly, in more ways than one) whose current, impressive (dentist, lawyer, publicist) careers obviously aren't enough to satisfy them. They want more. More money, more fame, and by golly, they will do whatever it takes to stand out on this show even if it means coming off as a telenovela cast off who got fired for overacting. And who can blame them, really? But to achieve fame, they'll need to do a whole lot more than re-Tweet fawning fan mail ("Team [Insert Name of Fave Housewife as If She's a Derby Horse or an NBA Franchise]" hashtag, excamation points) from lonely, celeb-obsessed followers sitting at home alone with their cats unable to get replies from actual celebrities. A root canal is really cool, but it's not going to get you on the cover of Us Weekly. There's the rub.

What will get them on the covers of any magazines (including Modern Science if it still exists) is the elephant in the room: Elsa Patton, a dramatic device of Shakespearean proportion and someone without whom this show could never survive. Call it exploitative, call it cruel, call it scary, but Patton is the Honey Boo Boo Child/Big Ang/Snooki of this franchise and everyone else has no choice but to, er, pale in comparison. No amounts of plastic surgery, implants or even money can compete. For better or for worse, this show needs her. And it is due to that rubbernecking reflex that this writer, among many others, will continue to watch even if it is up against Glee a show about, you know, talent.

Patton, incidentally, will be laughing her own way to the plastic surgeon's office bank: She, of course, now has her own coffee line and her own Bravo web series, both which go by the name Havana Elsa.

As for the general public's consensus, it was all about Elsa with some sprinklings of comments about model Joanna Krupa's beauty and the irony of her upgrading, not downgrading remark considering where she's making them--on a television "reality" show.

Bravo definitely missed the Miami boat by not starting this series years ago, when people still had patience to follow the vapid, insipid lives of "regular" rich folk. Like some of the women on this show, it's past its prime. Today, people would rather commiserate with the real "real" people, following the so-called white trash, wacked out woes of the working class. The women on Miami aren't working, they're just working it (some really, really, painfully hard)--something that's a little too late for the reality TV bubble. 

[Full disclosure: A few of the cast members on this show are this writer's personal friends and/or acquaintances]

Real Housewives of Miami premiere ratings: 1.066 mil viewers compared to NFL at 8.5m, Pawn Stars 2.2m, Project Runway 2m, Snooki & JWoww 1.5m (Source: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/09/14/thursday-cable-ratings-thursday-night-football-tops-night-awkward-sullivan-son-snooki-jwoww-project-runway-impractical-jokers-more/148643/)

The Real Housewives of Miami 2.0 premieres at 10 p.m. September 13

The do-over of The Real Housewives of Miami is readying for its close-up, premiering at 10 p.m. on September 13. From what we've heard and what we can see in the video preview above, this retooled version is not without its drama, scandal, famewhores, hangers-on and cat fighting. And not that he'd say otherwise, Andy Cohen said on Twitter that the first episode is "spectacular." Insert grains of salt here. But we kind of may believe him this time if just for the descriptions of some of the new cast members alone.

You can read the bios for each of the cast members by clicking here, but some of our favorite lines from said bios include: "This 29-year-old beauty made three appearances in Playboy magazine and can often be found shopping, lounging, and hanging out with her maid and best friend Daisy" (Lisa Hochstein); "Dr. Karent Sierra is Miami’s No. 1 celebrity dentist;" "Ana Quincoces is a straight-shooting Cuban dynamo who tells it like it is;" "From photo shoots with Marc Anthony to luncheons with President Obama, Alexia and her husband, Herman, are the real deal when it comes to the “Who's Who” in Miami;" and "Adriana DeMoura is best known as the Brazilian Bombshell of the Miami art scene."

There is so much fun to be had with all of this, but our favorite of the faves has to be "No. 1 celebrity dentist." A Root Canal Rock Star! And though neither are "official" cast members, it's evident that Elsa Patton and James Davis aka drag queen Elaine Lancaster will play prominent roles as chum for drama in the second season. We personally can't wait for this show even if its official description is "an inside look into the aspirational lives of seven women as they juggle family, work, and a spicy social scene in the hottest city in the world." Where else would a "celebrity dentist" live?  Have at it, commenters.  

Behind-the-scenes Real Housewives of Miami drama sizzles on Star Island

Photo/Manny Hernandez

You definitely didn't want to be in the shoes of certain Real Housewives of Miami cast members Wednesday afternoon at the just sold Star Island estate of shoe moguls Donald and Lisa Pliner. The couple hosted a classy ladies' luncheon followed by a fashion show of Lisa Pliner's 2012 fall collection of fab footwear, which some would argue were the real stars of the show.

All glammed up, made up, and wired like mafia rats were most of the cast: drag diva Elaine Lancaster, model Joanna Krupa who flew in from LA just for this particular scene--er, luncheon, plastic surgeon's wife Lisa Hochstein, dentist/model Karent Sierra, lawyer/chef Ana Quincoces, and returning cast members Lea Black, Adrianna De Moura, and Marysol Patton. Also in attendance and staying as far away from the cameras as possible was a gaggle of Miami society gals who were just there to see shoes and observe the scene.

And a scene it was, as the heat beat down on the glitz, creating a hot and bothered on-and off-camera situation between a few "Housewives" in particular, namely Patton and Lancaster, who had it out over some bad blood drawn long ago. To the disappointment of a few, no wigs flew, no tables flipped and no one ended up wrestling in the pool a la Krystle and Alexis.

Some of the on camera drama may be saucy, but even saucier was the off-camera drama between cast members and puppet master producers, who are most definitely stirring the pot with some carefully choreographed on-camera confrontation that's not quite Bob Fosse, but more like, say, an early 80s Paula Abdul. A source overheard Patton threatening to quit the show, a threat that was quickly rebuffed by a producer who warned her she had an iron-clad contract. A flustered Patton insists that there were no such threats made and that she just had to get back to work. Estrogen, egos and 80 degree heat isn't exactly a day in paradise, which is exactly what may make the second go-around--at least this episode, anyway--Must Tivo TV.

Meet Karent Sierra: dentist, actress, model & yet another "Real" Housewife of Miami

Just when we thought we've unearthed them all, we uncover yet another new cast member of the retooled Real Housewives of Miami. This one, Karent Sierra, likes to multi-task. She's an actress, a spokesperson, a model and . . . a dentist. What she's not is a wife, so she'll fit right in with all the other unmarried women in the misnomer of a franchise. We met her Saturday night with her BFF and bon vivant, party animal Beau Beasley, who will also make his Bravo debut in season 2. We asked her what in her right (?) mind would have her subject herself to such a thing and she told us bluntly that she wanted to promote world peace prove to viewers that not all the women on these shows are classless fame addicts with low IQs and Botox for brains. We can count on one finger hand a few who are smarter than they appear, but smarts don't always equal sanity.  Sierra, a Colgate spokesperson with obviously very white teeth, says she has a passion for being out there in the public eye, and wants to do right by Miami. She also tells us that yes, there's fabricated tension between her and all the other ladies who, uh, drill her on camera for, among other things, being a dentist and having a publicist.  Sierra says she refuses to stoop to the level of some of the other gals--no table throwing, no screaming, no cursing. So what then? "I'll just kill 'em with kindness," she says, sharpening her teeth. That, or laughing gas. Stay tuned.

Caption This: Elsa Patton strikes a pose for The Real Housewives of Miami

Although it was a benefit for The Little Lighthouse Foundation, a non-profit organization that "rallies volunteers and conducts high-profile events to benefit children and their families throughout South Florida," Saturday night's Hearts & Stars gala at the home of socialite Malinka Max (more on her later) and George Wallner turned out to be yet another opportunistic spectacle by The Real Housewives of Miami, namely Elsa Patton, who we are told was overheard complaining "What is this horrible event? I'm ready to go." We can't tell you whether or not the event was horrible--not everyone loves a splashy gala. What we can tell you is that the producers are completely exploiting "Mama Elsa" as a sideshow attraction in order to keep those rubbernecking viewers coming back for more. As for Malinka Max, a socialite whom some say would have been an excellent addition to this cast, we're told "She was horrible on camera." How much worse than the others could she possibly be?  Anyway, stay tuned as the cameras continue to film at the opening of every envelope and toilet lid around town.

When it comes to these Housewives shows, there's several sides of a story: hers, hers, hers, hers, the "truth" and the truth. Shortly after posting the above, we received this photo with a comment that Patton had a blast and danced all night. "She danced all night even after being accidentally kicked in the head by one of the new cast members," says our informant. Kicked in the head by one of the new cast members. Hey,the show must go on. Slapshtick only by Bravo.