Made In Chelsea Season 4 Review

• 2nd Apr 2013

Guilty pleasure Made in Chelsea (MIC) is back for a fourth season of braying, bitching and betrayal. New cast members are introduced, new love triangles are formed and Louise cries over Spencer. A lot. Like, every episode, it’s ridiculous.

For those new to the show, MIC is the UK’s answer to The Hills (the answer to a question no one asked?), so basically a privileged, photogenic cast who have plenty of money, but no apparent employment, who spend their entire time discussing relationships in scripted situations. The only real difference being the cast is based in exclusive Chelsea rather than LA. Alternatively many view it as the posh TOWIE, which is probably an accurate assessment of the show.

This season focuses mostly on the relationships between Louise and Spencer (hint: there’s a lot of crying), Jamie and the very likeable but badly-named Binky and new guy Andy and most of the female cast. There’s also an ongoing love triangle between new girl Sophia (yet another ex of Spencer’s), Francis and Proudlock, which should have most of the viewers rooting for the rather affable, but social awkward, Francis.

Like previous series, this one is once again focused on cast relationships and as a consequence most conversations on this show revolve around matters of the heart. Which is slightly problematic as one of the main issues with this show is that the viewer knows it is scripted, to a certain extent, and therefore it’s hard to care about the relationship tribulations of the cast when one is never entirely certain that these relationships are real. Some of the scenes reek of producer intervention and conversations are noticeably edited (throughout the course of one short conversation an ice cream sundae appears to be untouched, then half eaten, then untouched, then eaten, the untouched again, making the producer cut-and-chop very obvious). Like all reality shows of its ilk, MIC is heavily edited and manipulated; therefore it’s hard to take any of it at face-value.

Another issue with this show is that, unlike it’s Essex counterpart, the cast are educated, socially aware and are very conscious of the camera, which results in them being very controlled in their reactions (they may not be Mensa members but those £20k + a year educations still shine through) and therefore MIC tends to lack the drama that is generally associated with this type of show. That being said there’s a great scene towards the end of the series that will have viewers cheering on Millie Mackintosh and her palm of fury!

Probably the biggest set-back for this show (and simultaneously one of its strengths) is that it’s very easy to dislike the cast. It’s a little grating to watch the young, beautiful and rich moan about their problems while simultaneously holding a £4K bag. That being said there are some very memorable characters on this show, say what you will about Ollie Lock and Mark-Francis (and most people do) but they have great one-liners and make the show a little more interesting. Still the majority of the cast are extremely privileged and act accordingly, which makes them naturally dislikeable. But one might argue that many watch the show merely to hate on the cast (this is exactly the type of show people like to abuse on Twitter for fun) and I would guess that these type of viewers make up at least a third of the audience. Whatever the case, the fact remains that people continue to tune into MIC for whatever reason, which is why the show has managed reach a fourth season with a fifth in the offing.

As this show is now in its fourth series it’s safe to assume that those still watching are hardcore fans and this series definitely has enough twists and turns to keep it interesting for MIC followers. Still, the Louise/Spencer story is growing tiresome and it would be nice if the cast could talk about something other than relationships occasionally. Yes, MIC is vapid, pointless and stupid, but it’s an E4 reality show, what else do you expect?!

Lindsay Emerson