IN THESE STRANGE TIMES, ‘KUWTK’ IS ODDLY COMFORTING
While everything else in the world is currently being turned on its head, there are still some things you can rely on. Like the new season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (starts Fri., Mar. 27 at 12pm; E! and streams the same day on hayu). In their 18th season, Kim, Khloé, Kourtney (who was meant to be bowing out of filming to spend more time with her kids but is still around to some extent) and the rest of the family are back to do what they do best: fight, make up, obsess about themselves and fight some more. In these strange times, KUWTK is comfort reality TV.
Indeed, if there’s one quality the series has it is familiarity. You know exactly what you are going to get when you tune in, and who doesn’t want something solid to cling to at the moment? The fact the show is still on air after all these years when it hasn’t really diverted from the formula that made it a success in the first place is testament to the fact that it knows how to give its audience what it wants. And that audience is made up of millions of people who, thanks to the cast’s willingness to show every detail of their lives to the cameras, know the Kardashians and Jenners intimately. As many of us settle in for extended periods of staying at home and seeing only our immediate family in the weeks (and months?) ahead, the series provides viewers with some more very familiar company.
Since filming on Season 18 began late last year, it’s also nice to be transported back to a time when a terrifying pandemic wasn’t spreading mercilessly across the globe; when punch-ups didn’t occur in supermarket aisles over toilet paper but happen onscreen between sisters who know that a family feud is ratings gold. In this age of instant gratification, it has long struck me as quite odd that by the time the series airs, the events it shows are old news. Now, that delay works in its favour. •