Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Million Dollar Beach House’ On Netflix, A Reality Series About Brotastic Realtors Selling Massive Hamptons Vacation Homes -…

The towns in the Hamptons (on the south fork of Long Islands eastern tip) are collectively one of the most competitive real estate markets in America. Massive homes that go for millions of dollars, often on the beach or the bay. And because most of them are vacation homes, the people that the over 2500 realtors in the area work with are massively wealthy. Million Dollar Beach House follows five realtors from the Nest Seekers agency in East Hampton as they try to broker massive deals that will fetch them and the agency six-figure commissions.

Opening Shot: Shots of spectacular homes around The Hamptons. Then we get a shot of an amazing, dark-wood-clad house with an infinity pool. Inside, a realtor is telling a new colleague that hes going to give a practice walk-through to two of his colleagues.

The Gist: Million Dollar Beach House flips the gender equation of its fellow Netflix show, Selling Sunset; of the five realtors the show follows, four of them are men. James Giugliano is a top realtor who built himself up from the bottom in five short years. J.B. Andreassi is the rookie realtor, who has worked in real estate before, just not at the level he will be in The Hamptons. Hes actually from the area, and has returned to rebuild his life for reasons we have yet to find out. His high school friend Mike Fulfree, a top realtor at the agency, is about to have his first child and is sweating the fact that he and his wife are going to have to get ready for this during peak selling season (Memorial Day to Labor Day; no deals get done after the summer season is over).

Mike, whos a former model but still has a lot of Long Island in him, doesnt particularly get along with Noel Roberts, whom he thinks is too polished. Noel who pronounces his name like Billy Joel pronounces his last name, instead of the Christmas way has a bead on a spectacular oceanfront home that he thinks he can get the listing for. One thing he needs to do is to convince the owner, who poured millions into the house to make it her dream home to sell. And to do that, he puts out a stunning number: $35 million.

He takes the only woman in the office, Peggy Zakakolas, around the home with the owner, and is irritated that Peggy is doing all the talking. But Peggy, who worked for Nest Seekers in Manhattan and thinks her Rolodex of millionaires will be an advantage to her and the agency in the Hamptons, scoffs at the price Noel throws out to the owner, which is almost twice as high as anything in the area. She feels hes doing it to get the listing and the big score on the off chance he can get a buyer, but he thinks because of all the time and effort put into the house, its worth just that much.

Our Take: One of the things that makesSelling Sunset a success is that it not only has some interesting personalities among its cast, with juicy personal stories, but the real estate office there actually looks and feels like a real, functional office (even if its not, at least the producers do a good job of making it seem that way). The realtors onMillion Dollar Beach House, on the other hand, feel like they were cast in the roles of realtors. Every one of them have just started at the office in the past year, and the only one who looks like they have any kind of real estate experience is Peggy. The rest of them fumble around and make mistakes that your local Century 21 agent selling $200,000 houses doesnt make.

There are two tip-offs that the show is manufactured. First, theres the silly office layout, where the desks face each other in a zig-zag fashion so that the realtors are perfectly set up to chit-chat with each other when theyre in the office. The second is that theres no manager or agency owner in sight. So theres no one to call a meeting, no one to find out the status of the sales, no one to help direct any of these realtors. So in both ways, the office doesnt seem to function like an actual realty office, just a soundstage for pretty people to chat between house porn shots.

Because of the gender makeup of the show, and where its located, the energy of the show is a bit too brotastic for our tastes. When Peggy helps Mike set up an open house for the house he calls the Patti Shack, he walks around with his shirt open, revealing part of his massive chest tattoo. Classy. But it feels like the producers want to set up the rivalries between realtors immediately, so within the first five minutes, were already getting Mike making fun of how Noel pronounces his name.

It just feels like the show is set up for conflict and house porn, with personalities that show nothing but testosterone-fueled competitiveness (and that includes Peggy). But none of the cast is interesting enough to want to follow, even after watching the first two episodes. It also doesnt help to see rich people buying massive houses during a summer where none of us can go anywhere and many of us dont have jobs anymore.

Sex and Skin: Lots of house porn, but no sex or skin among the cast.

Parting Shot: Patti, the owner of the Patti Shack arrives during the open house (i.e. the biggest no-no in realty 101) and doesnt like the changes Mike made in order to stage the house for his intended buyer, a single finance bro or tech dude.

Sleeper Star: Noel, only because we find out in episode two that he has a twin brother named Joel (pronounced Jo-el), who is irritated that his brother changed the pronunciation of his name so their names no longer rhyme.

Most Pilot-y Line: Mike and J.B. skateboarding was a pretty dumb scene, especially because Mike is such a big guy. It also made them look completely like idiot kids instead of adults. Also, J.B. went to Dartmouth but somehow still doesnt know how to speak proper English.

Our Call: SKIP IT.Million Dollar Beach Housetries to force conflict, but its vibe is too aggro, especially against the backdrop of the lavish homes the realtors are selling.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesnt kid himself: hes a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

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Stream It Or Skip It: 'Million Dollar Beach House' On Netflix, A Reality Series About Brotastic Realtors Selling Massive Hamptons Vacation Homes -...