Stream It Or Skip It?

In the first episode of Members Only: Palm Beach on Netflix, we’re introduced to five women who are either embedded in Palm Beach’s society scene or are relatively new and want to climb the society ladder. Hilary Musser, Taja Abitbol, Rosalyn Yellin, Ro-mina Ustayev and Maria Cozamanis seem to completely center their lives on the events of the social season in the Palm Beach area, who’s inviting whom to what event, how scandalous certain people are, and how these connections help their or their spouse’s business interests.

Opening Shot: As we see rapid-fire scenes of huge waterfront properties in Palm Beach, Florida, a voice says that the city is “one of the most breathtaking places in the entire world.”

The Gist:  The nominal “queen of Palm Beach” is Hilary, who’s been there for 21 years and made her name in real estate. We see her setting up a “Florida Experience Party” for 1000 Miglia, an Italian rally race. Most of her society “friends” are invited, except for Rosalyn, who is in her fifth year in the city and has shot up the ranks through her charity efforts. Essentially, word has gotten back to Hilary that Rosalyn has been talking crap about friends of Hilary’s, which is why Rosalyn isn’t at the Miglia party.

Hilary’s friend Taja has been in Palm Beach for 5 years, and Maria is in her third year, having come in the “back door” (her words) as a DJ at Mar-a-Lago. Despite all of the huge private clubs on Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago is mentioned a lot in the first episode, indicating that it’s the center of Palm Beach society (given it’s owned by President Trump and has an entry fee of $1.5 million, that may be the case).

Ro-Mina is new to the scene, having been invited there by her fellow southeast Pennsylvania native Rosalyn. She seeks advice from Rosalyn, Hilary and Maria on how to make connections within society ranks, and they all tell her different things.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Members Only: Palm Springs is very much in the vein of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise. The discussion of society “rules” reminds us of the most annoying parts of the series Palm Royale.

Our Take: Your enjoyment of Members Only: Members Only really depends on how much you like to watch overly-plastic-looking women arguing about petty grievances and things no one outside their circle of friends cares about. Like we mention above, the producers of Members Only pretty much lifted the Real Housewives formula lock, stock and barrel, and they’re hoping that the new-money opulence on display throughout the series and the rivalries and back-biting will be entertaining.

It’s certainly not entertaining to us, because everything being fought about involves people elbowing their way to their spot in a world that we couldn’t care less about. The idea is that women like Maria can wheedle their way into the society scene in Palm Beach, despite being covered in tattoos and being brash and “out there”, and they’re still looking at a newbie like Ro-mina and thinking that she just won’t fit in. It’s pretty ballsy when you think about it; it does seem that Ro-mina’s struggle to fit in while being a “version” of her brash self will be a main theme of the season, and is probably the least boring of the mostly-boring storylines being examined.

But the extent of what we see of all of these women’s personalities is truly dependent on what parties they’re invited to, and whether they follow the unwritten rules of being a part of Palm Beach society. It’s all so dull and meaningless that we almost fell asleep writing that paragraph.

Performance Worth Watching: We’re going to give this to ourselves, because we spent the entire episode trying to figure out exactly how old the cast members are, given their various degrees of plastic surgery, veneers, spray tans and youthful clothing styles.

Sex And Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Where does the pilot leave us? Hanging off a cliff, or running for the hills?

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Maria, mainly because she seems to take herself the least seriously out of all the cast members. We find out the least about Taja in the first episode, so we’re a tiny bit curious to know what her story is.

Most Pilot-y Line: If you played a game where you took a drink every time someone on this series mentioned Mar-a-Lago, you end up passing out by the end of the first episode.

Our Call: SKIP IT. A key to enjoying a reality series like Members Only: Palm Beach is a desire to look into a particular part of our society, but in this case, we have little interest to see how Palm Beach society operates, and how nasty the in-fighting there can get. And it doesn’t help that the cast doesn’t particularly distinguish itself in the first episode.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.