Television has gotten pretty dark. Tech dystopias, from Black Mirror to Severance , are our water-cooler shows. The true-crime factory pumps out more real-life nightmares every day. Millions of viewers are bingeing on post-apocalyptic misery, whether it takes the shape of The Last of Us ’ fungal wasteland or Silo ’s crumbling underground city or the sterile billionaires’ stronghold in Paradise . Even realistic dramas increasingly rely on a murder-mystery element to build suspense. And yet, somehow, the most depressing show on TV—with the exception of any news broadcast, at least—is a reality soap about bougie couples in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

I am, of course, talking about Bravo’s The Valley , the Vanderpump Rules spinoff that follows some of the latter

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