For Zalaznick and Scott Dunlop, the one review that truly got the show was a piece written back in 2007, by former VH1 president Michael Hirschorn. In The Atlantic, Hirschorn had made the best case for the value of a set of shows the world dismissed as disposable. Maybe the Bravo lineup lacked the “visual panache” of prestige cable, Hirschorn wrote. But shows like The Real Housewives reflected something authentic, if you knew what to look for. They were mirrors of the bleakness of supposed privilege, reflecting themes that scripted drama had never captured, a fractured world in which
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