• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, June 1, 2015

Two thoughts came to mind while I was watching the first episode of “UnREAL” over the weekend in preparation for writing this review. 

One was my customary reaction to shows like this one: Surprise, mixed with a wee bit of prudish disgust, or maybe just astonishment, over what they’re getting away with on commercial-supported TV these days -- in the case of this show, various dirty words and phrases, plus blatant, undisguised sex scenes and sex acts that are strictly for adults only.

The other reaction was: I enjoyed this show very much, and perhaps it is becoming time for me to lose the wide-eyed attitude when it comes to adult material on prime-time TV and join the twenty-first century (which I realize has already been underway for 15 years).

Okay -- for this show called “UnREAL” (premiering Monday night at 10 Eastern), I chose the latter reaction, which is to come out full of praise, while acknowledging that the show seems to represent a new direction for Lifetime Television. To use a phrase that is overused these days: Lifetime has gone edgy with this new TV show about a TV show.

“UnREAL” is a scripted drama about an unscripted TV show -- a behind-the-scenes look at the drama that goes into producing the true--  but also fake -- drama seen on a fictional prime-time TV show obviously based on “The Bachelor” and shows like it.

On “UnREAL,” the fictional show is called “Everlasting,” and it features a “bachelor” who is supposedly a real British prince (or possibly just a member of the English aristocracy). He is the prize for a group of statuesque “real” women who have been cast to fill various roles -- the poor girl who rose from nothing, the virgin (who is well into her 20s), the desperate housewife, the slut and others.

The roles have been predetermined by the show’s jaded, hard-driving executive producer, played by Constance Zimmer, who sinks her teeth into this role and doesn’t let go. And I mean that as a compliment; she’s great in it. She’s a caricature, of course, and whether or not she’s an accurate caricature I’ll leave to others to decide. Meanwhile, while others wonder about that, I’ll be enjoying the show.

As a counter-weight to the executive producer, the show’s other principal character is a young assistant producer named Rachel who apparently had a nervous breakdown in the live final episode of the previous season of “Everlasting,” but who still has a job on the show because of the quality of her talent for getting the show’s contestants to cry and otherwise emote on camera.

She’ll stop at nothing to draw these reactions, but she’s under a lot of stress. The executive producer constantly presses her to go farther than she’s ever gone before to deceive and manipulate the women on the show, and it evidently tears at her psyche. She loves it and she hates it.

Rachel is played by Shiri Appleby and she’s the mesmerizing the center of this show. Her character has been written in such a way that she comes across as a younger version of the executive producer. Rachel can be as ruthless as her boss, but she has not yet shed her reservations about the profession she has chosen.  

Whether the boss realizes it or not, Rachel is a likely potential competitor for her job too -- although this is just a guess on my part. On the show (not the show within the show), Appleby is sort of a competitor for Zimmer as well. In a way, they are both vying for position as “the character you can’t take your eyes off of.”

Neither of them wins the position in the premiere of “UnREAL,” although they both brought their “A” games to the episode. The real winners are Lifetime and A+E Studios, which produced the show -- and viewers who will make an effort to sample this series tonight.

“UnREAL” premieres Monday night (June 1) at 10 Eastern on Lifetime.