Good Bye Dr. Phil Housewives!

Dr. Phil finally is saying good bye to the housewives after taking months of breaks between shows. The series was supposed to air every Tuesday “Get Real Tuesdays,” and it did, until December 2010. Then came a half dozen shows between January and July 2012. Get real Tuesdays got up and went. Now they announce the official “good-bye” show and I had to watch it for closure. Dr. Phil gets around to each housewife, one on one, and reviews past clips.

This show was taped months ago, maybe as far back as January, like all the other shows. So if they all made progress, how did they do it with Dr. Phil’s help? We start with Alana, and she tells Dr. Phil how much she has changed because of his help. I find this incredible. In July’s episode she was still acting the same way she was in the beginning of the show. But here, both she and Dr. Phil are talking about her huge change. Okay, I totally do not believe this. Next, Dr. Phil arranges a meeting for Alana with a top plus size model to get advice. They tell her not to have a bad attitude or act like a diva, duh! Now suddenly Alana gets the message. And we learn she has been hired by a modeling agency months ago. Her dream has come true. I’m happy for her, but was it because of the show?

Jennifer is up next. She says she will take care of her kids, but she will never feel the same towards her husband again. Dr. Phil points out that she is bitter towards her husband. She feels she has no control because if she says how she feels to him, he could walk out the door. If she tells her daughter what she thinks of her for not visiting her son except for one time this year, she could take her grandson away. She is trying to get guardianship of her grandson. She gives Dr. Phil permission to look into her grandson‘s situation. He knows Jennifer feels trapped, he wants to get her “unstuck.” Dr. Phil and the staff like Jennifer a lot, and they want to continue to help her even after the show ends, with her grandson and her situation with her husband. They want her to have hope again and take the help they are offering. Jennifer sees a lawyer about her grandson. The lawyer thinks the court will appoint her as a guardian. She has hope that she will be able to keep Maverick.

Rachael is next! Rachael feels she has nothing to offer. Dr. Phil tells her she had low self esteem. She has been an important part of the group and has impacted Kimm and her relationship with her children. He tells her she will give her child the life she didn’t have. She has a solid guy. Angel has changed after being on the show, and become very supportive of her. Dr. Phil tells her she is focused on what she hasn’t accomplished and not what she has. She is the most popular housewife on the message boards because people relate to her.

Michelle’s turn. She says being on the show has changed her whole life. She feels indebted to Dr. Phil. She is more open to dating. She doesn’t want to link the men she meets to her relationship with her Dad. She is accepting that her father is who he is, and gives what her can, instead of thinking it’s about something she is lacking. It has nothing to do with her. Dr. Phil says she will get what she deserves. She has to lower her anxiety 95%. She feels she needs to control everything and she needs to relax in order to be approachable. Men want to be able to do things for women and if she is self sufficient then they have nothing to offer her. She is going to meet someone one day and Dr. Phil will give him the once over too.

Hmmm, Gloria is up to bat. Gloria is a little transformed she says. She claims she changed has changed two things, her delivery in speaking to people and her extreme reactivity. Dr. Phil says when she gives advice, she has to gauge if people are ready to hear what she has to say. Then he asks her if she is ever relaxed and at peace and she says it’s rare. He thinks a partner in life would help her. He believes we create our own experience. She agrees and says she is single by her own doing. She is getting in her own way. Her expectations are too high and she dismisses men early on. She feels the show has helped her recognize that about herself.

Kimm, last but not least. She thanks Dr. Phil from the bottom of her heart. Her life has changed. Dr Phil wants to give her feedback. She has shown courage in dealing with her issues, she climbed out of her bed and back into her family. He says he is a fan. It took a lot for her to pull that off. He says she can always call if she has questions and needs help. She says there were times she was mad at him or the other women, but she came back and grew each time. He doesn’t care that she was mad, he knew she would turn her life around. When she admitted she was a fraud, he knew at that point she would change her life.

My two cents:

Now the thing is, they had many more hours of video that we never saw. If, in fact, the taping ended in January, then everyone changed their lives six or eight months ago when this was taped. They had sessions back then that never aired and we were never privy to, for whatever reason. Promises broken to viewers who signed on for the whole series, not half a series and a few scattered episodes. The series was run into the ditch, as Dr. Phil likes to say. And then, they decided to throw us two bones. A show in July with the housewives playing games and the good bye show two months later before his new season starts. Which was the very least they could do. But was it enough? I don’t think so. I found this irritating. What can you do? It’s all about ratings and the bottom line, money. Maybe the show wasn’t popular with enough viewers and they decided to shelve the rest of the shows? We never did get any kind of explanation. Dr. Phil promises to stay in touch with them and monitor their progress…somehow I doubt it.

What I do appreciate about the series is that I got to "meet" all six housewives on facebook.  It was great getting to know them and chatting with them.  Some of them have even become friends with me through this experience.  I wish all of them the very best in their lives and I plan to stay in touch with those who care to interact on facebook.  I've also made a lot of friends who were fans of the show on the facebook page that was set up for us to chat about the show and ended up being the place where we vented frustration at the lack of new episodes.  A lot of new relationships were forged by many thansk to the series and facebook.  Some may last a lifetime.  So something good did comeout of it; something unintended and surprising; and many lives have been enriched since the first episode aired a year ago.