'The Spin Crowd,'
spun out of control
E! reality series suffers from its central character
By Tom Conroy
Aug 20, 2010
When one door closes, another one opens. Now that “The Hills” has gone to reality heaven, viewers need a place to find truthy stories about attractive young women working for difficult bosses in a purportedly glamorous field.
E! is coming to the rescue with “The Spin Crowd,” a new reality series about Command PR, a public relations firm run by a flamboyant individual named Jonathan Cheban, who’s so over-the-top that he’s beneath consideration. Fortunately, his young female staffers are both relatable and attractive, and they make the half hour bearable.
The premiere, airing this Sunday at 10:30 p.m., starts with Jonathan telling us that ever since he was a little boy growing up in New Jersey and looking at the skyline of New York, he’s dreamed of being on the red carpet. Though we see paparazzi photos of him near various celebrities, as a child he probably dreamed that the lenses would be focused on him.
Jonathan seems to have channeled that lifelong disappointment into disguised hostility. Early in the first episode, he berates a young staffer named Erika for wearing unglamorous clothes to the firm’s L.A. office. He orders another staffer, a former model and “VIP hostess” named Lauren, to stand up and model her more appropriate outfit, which barely covers her nipples.
Then Jonathan pressures Erika to get lip injections. When Erika fails to follow up to his satisfaction, he tells her, “You’re homely — no offense — but this is, like, Hollywood and you need to step it up.”
Fortunately, Erika has a friend on staff named Katie who defends her to Jonathan and sensibly tells her she should do what she wants with her own face. Later, when Erika succeeds by using her head rather than her looks, soft-hearted viewers will cheer.
A tease with scenes from the upcoming season suggests that much of the action will revolve around the “Hills”-like adventures of the young female staffers.
This is just as well. Since it’s impossible to say whether Jonathan is playing to the show’s cameras or to the imaginary camera crew that has been following him since childhood, we can’t take him seriously. Whether it’s funny for a grown man to criticize his employees’ physical appearance or act like a spoiled baby is a question of taste.
The good fop to Jonathan’s bad fop is the firm’s vice-president, Simon Huck, who offers to give Erika the name of a lawyer who will help her sue Jonathan. Simon says that the second thing Jonathan said to him when he interviewed for a job was “Why are your pants so high?”
In order to punish Jonathan for his treatment of Erika, Simon persuades him to undergo a painful fat-freezing treatment. Such a contrived-feeling segment should have a better payoff.
The show, a version of which aired in February under the name “The Spindustry,” is produced by an authentic tabloid star, Kim Kardashian, and in the opening of the episode, Jonathan boasts that he’s “worked with everyone from J Lo, Rihanna and Lady Gaga.” But as far as celebrities go, all we see is everyone from Mario Lopez.
Simon and Jonathan meet with Lopez to ask him to host a party for a self-tanning lotion. Playing hard to get at first, Lopez says, “Being born Mexican, I already have a natural tan going on.” Jonathan and Simon tell the camera that they have to charm Lopez, but the meeting feels from the start like a done deal.
The degree of logrolling and back scratching is hard to judge: Is the client paying more to have his product featured on this show? Did Lopez agree to do it because he wanted to publicize his own show, “Extra,” or did Jonathan want him more because he’s the host of “Extra”?
In any case, the segment fails as either a taste of Hollywood glamour or a peek into the real-life practices of a celebrity PR firm.
“The Spin Crowd” could work as another reality soap opera about pretty young things and their trials and triumphs at work. But no amount of spin can make Jonathan seem like anything other than a tired act we’ve seen too much.
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