We got our hands on the premiere episode of A&E’s new reality series, “Sons of Hollywood” – which begins on April 1st – and based on what we’re seeing here, we’re guessing that the network is going to have an uphill battle on its hands promoting this as a must-see show.
The series documents the lives of two famous celebrity offspring – Sean Stewart (Rod’s son) and Randy Spelling (Aaron’s son / Tori’s brother) – and their manager, David Weintraub, who’s also been their friend since childhood; basically, we watch as Sean and Randy careen through their lives of luxury, but with the exception of one subplot…and, frankly, it feels very weird referring to an actual event in someone’s life as a “subplot”…there’s very little for anyone to latch onto. Weintraub’s a professional who’s trying to keep his friends / clients on the straight and narrow, but they tend to be more interested in sleeping, golfing, drinking, and gambling. (Not necessarily in that order, you understand.) Given that the show’s slogan is “Real Life, Only Better,” one supposes that viewers are supposed to look at the goings-on and say, “Wow, I wish my dad was famous, because if he was, then my life would clearly be awesome!” But you can’t really look at these guys and imagine yourselves in their shoes. The only time you feel any sort of empathy towards either Sean or Randy is when Randy deals with the emotional turmoil of his father’s impending death; he knows he’s sick and that death is immiment, and for a few minutes, you can actually see past the spoiled rich kid exterior. But the moment is gone far too quickly…
We’re not going to completely write off “Sons of Hollywood” based on this single episode; we’ll definitely check it out and see where things go from here. After all, the show ends to the strains of The Thrills’ “Hollywood Kids” and its sarcastic lyric, “Those Hollywood kids got it made,” so maybe we’ll see David helping Sean and Randy shape up and actually do something halfway important with the power and money that’s attached to their name. But it had better happen pretty quickly.
