Brighton Beach Show Needs To Grow A Pair

When we told you that the Brighton Beach show will air on Lifetime Channel, we didn’t really know what to make of it.

Was Lifetime taking steps to re-brand for a younger, livelier generation? Were they moving from the wide-hipped Bonbon crowd to the Cosmo-downing, urban chic chickies?  You know… a little less Dorothy and a little more Blanche?

Nope! Lifetime’s audience just isn’t ready for this jackass. The Lifetime version will be “suitably feminized,” network spokesman Michael Feeney told the New York Times.

“It’s a multigenerational women’s story about life in the community,” Mr. Feeney said. “It’s about their dating life, their work life, their relationships together and their external relationships. It characterizes a community; it’s not a bunch of people put in a house. It’s done in the Lifetime voice, not in the MTV voice.”

… Mr. Feeney said the producers were currently casting for families. Na zdorovje!

So, it looks like the producers are starting over from scratch, despite their last Facebook update in August saying the “cast is almost complete…and we’ll start shooting soon.” And thousands of stereotype-indulging Russkies are in for massive disappointment. Perhaps a second Russian Revolution is in the works, and this one will be televised.

Or not. Regardless, the thing I’m left wondering is what’s so interesting about this “feminized” angle that Lifetime would want to do it? I wasn’t a big fan of the whole Jersey Shore idea, but I could see how others might be interested. But this?

Sheepshead Bay is a Russian neighborhood, so I have to ask: are the stories of Russian women’s dating life, work life and external relationships so much different than anyone else’s? Or am I going to have to quickly learn the Russian phrase for “Zzzzz…..”?