“The Real Housewives of D.C.”
Thursday 9pm, Bravo
Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise has already embarrassed the women of Southern California, New York City, Atlanta and New Jersey, so it’s about time it got around to making the ladies of the District look terrible. “RHoDC” follows five women, most notably Michaele Salahi, the “model” and “philanthropist” who sparked a national scandal last year when she and her husband crashed President Obama’s first White House State Dinner. You’ll get to see that whole mess unfold this season, since the Salahis were filming this show when the incident occurred (Bravo swears it had no idea that they weren’t invited to the event; the Salahis claim that the “truth will come out,” or some such shit). I hear that the rest of the “housewives” are pretty boring, although one of them has a young lover named Ebong, so she can’t be all bad.
“Rubicon”
Sunday 9pm, AMC
AMC continues its streak of thought-provoking drama series with original concepts (1960s Madison Avenue ad execs; high-school science teacher-turned-meth kingpin) with this new series about a paranoid intelligence analyst/code breaker who believes that he’s stumbled upon a governmental conspiracy. Features James Badge Dale (“The Pacific”), Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket), and the awesome Miranda Richardson (Sleepy Hollow). This is bound to be one of the more cerebral TV outings of the year. I personally can’t wait until the movie channel launches its other brain-related series, the comic-based zombie drama “The Walking Dead,” come October.
“Bachelor Pad”
Monday 9pm, ABC
Back in the early aughts “The Bachelor” brought the dating show back to television. A few years later VH1 transformed the concept into its guilty-pleasure “Flavor of Love” series. With all of the desperate skanks and himbos cast off the various “Flavor” seasons and its spin-offs, VH1 flipped the script again and threw a bunch of them into a house to compete for cash, and to further degrade themselves in “I Love Money.” Turnabout is fair play, and now “The Bachelor” is getting into the recycling business with “Bachelor Pad,” in which 19 former “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” contestants battle it out for money and “a second chance at love,” a.k.a., late-night booty calls. I checked out of this franchise years ago, so none of the names mean anything to me except co-host Melissa Rycroft, who has parlayed getting dumped into her fourth reality show.