Starting a new season of Below Deck could also be like going back to summer camp as a kid – you realize it will be fun and you may be in the identical environment, but some people shall be different and you are not entirely sure what the vibe shall be.
That’s especially the case this time around, as for the primary time within the show’s 11-season run, Captain Lee Rosbach isn’t any longer on the helm. It’s a pivotal moment for the series, which since premiering on Bravo in 2013 has turn out to be some of the popular entities within the vast reality TV universe. The show’s appeal was built on the infinite romances between the varied crew members (“boat trips,” because it turned out to be known), obnoxious charter guests, and a kind of passive-aggressive fight over what number of anchor chain shackles ought to be within the water. And all the time Rosbach presided over the drama as he wandered across the boat, unfurling one-liners like “I’m crazier than a pissed off chicken” and “We’ve fucked the dog so many times we should have had a litter of puppies around.”
At the middle of things now could be Kerry Titheradge (the strict but goofy captain of Below Deck Adventure fame), who runs the motor yacht Saint David with sassy chef de stew Fraser Olender at his side.
According to Olender, after the captain change, the energy on the boat – each on and off screen – is different.
“I think Kerry this season, unlike Lee, has no cliché, which I love about him,” Olender said in an interview. “With Kerry, he taught me a lot and kind of forced me to confront problems directly with my team, solve them, rather than making executive decisions too early.”
This change in management style changes the central conflict – while the drama used to give attention to the captain quickly throwing out any unpleasant crew member (as we saw with Rosbach), the drama now focuses on your complete crew attempting to get along (since Titheradge gives people second likelihood).
Additionally, Olender noted that the captain’s relationship with the crew may influence drama on board.
“The captains are absolutely committed, whether they know it or not,” Olender said, adding that for the crew, all of it comes all the way down to “trying to impress the captain.”
This phenomenon occurs early within the new season when chief deckhand Ben Willoughby radioed at one other crew member to not wear a life jacket, something he could easily have done in private. The drama that followed escalated into an interpersonal conflict between the 2, with the last word goal of impressing Titheradge. (Of course, the 2 sailors kissed throughout the previous crew night, which is more paying homage to the Below Deck drama that viewers are accustomed to.)
For Below Deck’s showrunners, the forged changes allowed them to rethink what the series would appear to be.
From the season premiere, it was immediately apparent that Rosbach’s absence wasn’t the one change this season: the cinematography is more elegant, on a regular basis, multi-course meals prepared by the chef have their very own glamor shots, and the cameras sometimes cut to the attitude of yachts running across the deck and across the kitchen.
“Our showrunner, Lauren Simms, is an avid consumer of all types of media,” Noah Samton, senior vice chairman of ongoing unscripted programming at NBCUniversal, said in an interview. “It gives us different ideas on how to stylistically evoke different feelings and change the mood of Below Deck a bit without removing what really works.”
Later within the season, and potentially in seasons to come back, Olender goals to introduce a dogged management style while making his stews likeable, all because of his trademark British humor.
On Bravo’s end, developments are going down on other “Below Deck” spinoffs — including “Sailing Yacht,” “Mediterranean” and “Down Under” — which have a total of 26 seasons. Specifically, Samton said that “Down Under” is currently filming and while fans ought to be ready for new things, the show will remain true to its original concept.
“These are real sailors doing real work, so you have to stick to those restrictions because viewers won’t want anything that’s too manufactured or fake,” Samton said. “So we have to find a way to reinvent something while staying true to the original concept of the show.”
And as Olender said, “I’m sure if I were to work with this series again every year, I’d be thrown a collection of totally chaotic and disastrous stews – that’s what makes it watchable.”
