Starting a new season of “Below Deck” can be similar to returning to summer camp as a kid — you know it’s going to be fun and that you’ll be in the same environment, but some of the people will be different and you’re not quite sure what the vibes will be.
This time around, in particular, feels that way because for the first time in the show’s 11-season run, Captain Lee Rosbach is no longer at the helm. It’s a pivotal moment for a franchise that has become one of the most popular entities in the sprawling universe of reality TV since premiering on Bravo in 2013. The show’s appeal was built on endless romances between various crew members (“boatmances,” as they came to be known), horrible charter guests and some sort of passive-aggressive fight about how many shackles of the anchor chain should be in the water. And there was always Rosbach presiding over the drama as he trudged around the boat, reeling off one liners like “I’m madder than a pissed-on chicken” and “we screwed the pooch so many times we should have a litter of puppies running around.”
At the center of the show now is Kerry Titheradge (the stern yet goofy captain of “Below Deck Adventure” fame), who is managing the Motor Yacht Saint David with the cheeky chief stew Fraser Olender by his side.
With that change in captain, the energy on the boat — both onscreen and off — is different, according to Olender.
“I feel like Kerry this season, as opposed to Lee, has a no B.S. attitude, which I love with him,” Olender said in an interview. “With Kerry, he taught me a lot and sort of forced to me confront issues directly with my team, work them out, as opposed to making executive decisions too soon.”
This shift in management style changes the central conflict — whereas the drama once focused on the captain swiftly kicking out any unpleasant crew member (as we might have seen with Rosbach), the drama now focuses on the whole crew trying to get along (since Titheradge gives people those second chances).
Additionally, Olender noted that the captain’s relationship with the crew can also affect the drama on board.
“Captains absolutely do get involved, whether they know it or not,” Olender said, adding that for the crew, everything is about “trying to impress your captain.”
This phenomenon plays out early in the new season when the lead deckhand, Ben Willoughby, called out a fellow crew member over the radios about not wearing a life vest — something he easily could have done in private. The drama that followed became an interpersonal conflict between the two of them, both with the ultimate goal of impressing Titheradge. (Of course, the two deckhands had kissed on the previous crew night out, which is more in line with the “Below Deck” drama viewers are used to.)
For “Below Deck” showrunners, the changeovers in the cast allowed them to rethink what the show would look like.
From the season premiere, it was immediately apparent that Rosbach’s absence wasn’t the only change this season: The filming is sleeker, the daily, multicourse meals prepared by the chef are given their own glamour shots and the cameras sometimes cut to the perspectives of yachties running around on deck and through the galley.
“Our showrunner, Lauren Simms, is an avid consumer of all different kinds of media,” Noah Samton, a senior vice president of unscripted current production for NBCUniversal, said in an interview. “She pitches us different ideas on how to stylistically evoke different feelings and change the mood a little bit of ‘Below Deck’ without removing what really works.”
Moving through the rest of the season, and potentially through seasons to come, Olender is aiming to bring a cutthroat management style while also bringing affection for his stews, all with his signature British humor.
On Bravo’s side, there are changes in the works for the other “Below Deck” spinoffs — including “Sailing Yacht,” “Mediterranean” and “Down Under” — which collectively, have 26 seasons. Specifically, Samton said that “Down Under” is currently filming and that even though fans should be ready to see new things, the show will stay true to its original concept.
“These are real yachties doing a real job so you have to stay within those confines because the audience isn’t going to want anything that is too produced or fake,” Samton said. “So we have to find ways to reinvent while staying true to the original concept of the show.”
And as Olender said: “I’m sure that every year if I were to work with this franchise again, that I’ll be thrown a collection of total chaotic and disastrous stews — that’s what makes it watchable.”
