At times, the current season of Vanderpump Rules has felt like the final episodes of a long-running high school drama.
The characters we've watched party, cheat, fight, and generate endless drama for the past several years now appear much too old for such shenanigans, and the realization that it's time for a change is bittersweet.
For seven seasons now, Jax Taylor has persistently confounded and baffled Vanderpump Rules viewers.
Sure, Jax might seem like an open book at first -- it's hard to drink that much and hold on to many secrets -- but it's important to bear in mind that Taylor is also a compulsive and unrepentant liar.
The most consistent complaint about the current season of Vanderpump Rules is that the show has reached the point at which the cast members' lives are simply too settled to be consistently entertaining.
While we still believe Vanderpump has plenty of life in it -- if nothing else, it remains arguably the funniest reality shows on television -- it's not hard to see why viewers might be growing frustrated with a group that seems more concerned with promoting side projects (ranging from beer cheese to horror flicks) than stirring up drama.
On Tuesday, Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club premiered on MTV, reminding the world that Lindsay Lohan is still out there and still trying to rebuild her decimated career.
Lindsay would likely be the first to admit that she's made quite a few mistakes over the years.
While Vanderpump Rules fans wait with bated breath for Jax Taylor to finally kick James Kennedy's ass, James is causing more trouble.
Specifically, James is picking fights and feuding with his co-stars on Twitter. It's getting out of hand.
Vanderpump Rules fans have watched Brittany Cartwright tolerate an astonishing amount of mistreatment over the years.
Mostly at the hands of her fiance, Jax Taylor, of course.
Sadly, Vanderpump Rules appears to have entered that stage in the life cycle of every popular reality show in which the cast is too relatively rich and famous to engage in the sort of petty squabbles and public outbursts that made them relatively rich and famous in the first place.
We can safely say this about Vanderpump Rules Season 7 Episode 1:
It did not lack for drama.
It may be very warm and sunny in California at the moment.
But try telling that to Kim Kardashian and her sisters.
Barely over a week ago, Younes Bendjima and Kourtney Kardashian broke up -- and it was ugly.
Now, Younes is no longer her boyfriend or boy toy. He's just another young hottie trying to make it.
Last month, Vanderpump Rules star Jax Taylor got engaged to Brittany Cartwright.
Fans of the series were more than a little surprised, not because Jax has never really seemed like the marrying kind (although there is that), but because he's seemed to go out of his way to make Brittany's life markedly worse throughout their time together.
