Money problems: have we had enough of TV shows about rich people? | Television

As enjoyable because it was, Mountainhead appears to have damaged one thing in fairly lots of people. For some, it was just too well timed. In spite of everything, it’s one factor to launch a movie about tech billionaires combating over the remnants of a world ravaged by battle and AI, however fairly one other to do it whereas that actual factor was actually taking place.For others, Mountainhead marked the purpose the place ultra-rich antiheroes reached full saturation. Writing within the AV Membership final week, Saloni Gajjar made the argument that – between Mountainhead, Your Buddies & Neighbors, The White Lotus and 9 Excellent Strangers – now we have now arrived at a second the place tv appears unable to inform tales which might be about something however the badly behaved wealthy.Gajjar’s level is nicely made, however I believe the reality is likely to be a bit bit extra insidious than that. Sure, we do look like in the midst of an unceasing wealth glut on tv, however the issue isn’t simply wealthy antiheroes. It’s the wealthy, full cease.In the event you watch sufficient TV, you might need seen a gradual creep of aspiration. Homes are getting greater. Garments have gotten extra trendy. House furnishings have turn out to be so universally luxe that it doesn’t matter what I’m watching – Shrinking, perhaps, or The 4 Seasons – I’ll nearly at all times discover myself detaching from the plot to surprise the place the characters purchased their good lamps.And when you begin to discover it, you’ll see it in every single place. The Higher Sister is a generic homicide thriller that’s inconceivable to interact with as a result of everybody lives their lives in a heightened state of monied consolation. Sirens is a whirlwind of impeccable interiors and never a lot else.Sarah Jessica Parker in And Simply Like That. {Photograph}: HBONobody on And Simply Like That has spent even a second worrying about cash, despite the fact that Carrie Bradshaw has principally acquired the very same job as me and I can barely make it midway round Lidl with out having a panic assault about exceeding my overdraft. After I watched Good American Household, my first thought wasn’t ‘How terrible that these individuals deserted their toddler daughter alone in an residence whereas they moved to Canada,’ however ‘How the hell did these individuals afford a whole separate residence for his or her toddler daughter?’And that is the issue. A minimum of when the wealthy persons are the baddies you possibly can argue that the exhibits try to make a degree about them. Succession primarily trapped its characters inside the confines of their wealth. They may have all of it, the present mentioned, however solely as a result of they needed to money of their souls. And whereas The White Lotus has to return to the identical nicely too many instances by dint of its format, it nonetheless has loads to say concerning the rich. This yr, particularly, it was the newly rich. Watch how shortly Belinda, a lowly spa supervisor in season one, traded in all of her defining traits the second a windfall hit her account.I’d even argue that Mountainhead didn’t qualify as wealth porn, as a result of each single character was caught up in a frantic, exhausting standing recreation to the exclusion of every little thing else of their lives. True, it featured a large home however, as Selection’s latest group interview revealed, they solely selected it as a result of it made the cinematographer need to kill himself. I’m no skilled, however I don’t suppose that the attraction of porn is what number of suicidal tendencies it triggers.Ramy Youssef in Mountainhead. {Photograph}: HBO/2025 House Field Workplace, Inc. All Rights Reserved.In different phrases, depictions of utmost wealth on TV are OK if they’ve a degree. All these exhibits had a degree. Billions had a degree. Even Schitt’s Creek managed to say one thing about cash. The issue is when this wears away and characters are solely wealthy as a result of producers need to give the viewer one thing good to take a look at. Generally this shift even occurs on the identical collection. The Morning Present might need began as a shiny satire about Reese Witherspoon’s plucky reporter being thrust into the well-to-do world of New York media, however it misplaced that chunk way back. Now it exists as a bizarre form of inside competitors to see which character can have the shiniest hair.And it’s this Promoting Sundown-ification of tv that should cease. After we’re confronted with such an unyielding parade of upscale consolation, the impact isn’t as aspirational as producers most likely suppose. We aren’t left with a growling envy of how the opposite half lives; we’re as an alternative left worrying that they wouldn’t know what actual life was like when you bonked them over the top with a Poundland flipflop. Though if anybody from The 4 Seasons does need to get in contact to inform me the place all their good lamps got here from (and, the place attainable, some acceptable Temu dupes) I’d admire it.