Relatability was never part of Made in Chelsea's mission statement. Everyone was beautiful. Everyone was rich. Everyone was free of tiresome ties, like jobs. Everyone was blonde. Everyone was white. The past tense of this all might be redundant because the show is in its 28th season – it might have legs – and much is still the same.
By comparison, the new two-part special Beyond Chelsea is all about relatability. And it's there. But oddly enough, not where its returning original stars necessarily think it is.
The trio is Binky Felstead (of former scruffy-hair extensions and tongue-in-cheek lols), Lucy Watson (the fiery-tongued purveyor of wearing every ounce of annoyance on her face) and Rosie Fortescue (whose not-bothered-ness always made her seem a bit above it all).
Let's get the boring bits out the way first. A lot of Beyond Chelsea is about giving the triumvirate a platform to flog their wares. Same old, same old, you might say – look no further than every single scene of The Kardashians for evidence this has become the bread and butter of fly-on-the-wall reality TV.
It is rather tedious watching Binky gush about curating a children's line of clothes or Lucy casting slinky models for her underwear brand, but the MiC cast always dabbled in sometimes short-lived "jobs", much like a child dressing up as a doctor or fireman for the day.
Jamie Laing – or Mr McVitie's – used the show to launch his sweets business Candy Kittens. Now the packets are in most confectionary aisles, proving all it takes for success is a solid vision and being birthed into extraordinarily good fortune.
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There is some of Made in Chelsea's classic out-of-touch in a non-objectionable way humour to be found in all this. Rosie breaks down her upcoming business venture: a range of inserts for the insides of designer handbags so none of your posh crap gets on the luxury lining. "We got the idea because we were sick of using plastic food bags in our Hermès handbags," Rosie tells us.
Consider this an interlude, during which you can go snap up your own.
The promotion for Beyond Chelsea has beat the drum that the episodes focus on the reality stars' graduation from the petty beefs and relationship dramas of MiC to become girlboss mothers and wives. This won't smash any reality TV glass ceilings. There's an entire Real Housewives franchise.
What is a bit different is how Rosie fits into it all, as the only one of the trio who is not married with kids, but wanting both one day. Approaching her mid-thirties, Rosie talks about having frozen her eggs so she doesn't feel pressured.
Casting her alongside yummy mummies Lucy and Binky is fascinating. There's one moment over drinks when Rosie sits mutely as Binky and Lucy natter away about weaning. It's been replicated in their press appearances, as their children have been positioned as the show's selling point, using snaps of Binky and Lucy with their little ones – Rosie, conspicuously absent.
Curiously, Binky has made a point of saying she no longer watches Made in Chelsea, because she can't relate to it anymore as a wife and mother of three. There's an implication that women who aren't married with children aren't interesting.
Whether intentionally or not, Beyond Chelsea captures some of the thorniness of being a woman in your thirties, when everything and everyone is – if only subliminally – telling you to settle down and pop out sprogs. Even this TV show.
That's not the only pressure at work here. It may or not be worth saying, but Binky, Rosie and Lucy all look like they've been preserved from when they first appeared on Made in Chelsea. Lucy says she looks better now than she did in her twenties.
At one point, we see Rosie get Botox. The aesthetician asks Rosie to frown, but given she's had the injections, she can't.
Rosie tells the cameras she works out, eats healthily and "looks after her skin" not because of pressures to look a certain way, but for herself. The aesthetician stares at Rosie's face and says she's on the "upper end" of perfection – then adds a "but" and hints at other possible treatments. The whole thing is mesmerising in a faintly monstrous way.
There's other stuff here that gives Beyond Chelsea its credentials as a grown-up version of Made in Chelsea. Binky's effervescent mum Jane – who would pop into MiC scenes, down a glass of champers and insist Binky come down to the country soon – has MS, which has drastically changed their relationship. For longtime fans, they will be sobering scenes.
It's not to say it wasn't fun coming along for their parties, holidays, break-ups and make-ups, but with Beyond Chelsea we've finally found something of substance.
Beyond Chelsea begins on Tuesday, October 29 at 10pm on E4.
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Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
