Stream or skip: Hollywood Houselift With Jeff Lewis on Amazon Freevee, where the extraordinarily badass House Flipper tackles celebrity home renovations (2023)

For the first time in 3 years since the end of the Bravo seriesget scared(and the end of his relationship with Gage Edward and his long friendship with Jenni Pulos) Jeff Lewis is back on TV this timeAmazon Freevee. She still does renovations and interior design, but this time the clients are all celebrities. Will there still be all the workplace inadequacy and volcanic rage that Lewis is known for?

HOLLYWOOD HOUSE ELEVATOR WITH JEFF LEWIS:¿Transmit or skip?

opening shot:Scenes of Los Angeles, then a shot of Jeff Lewis' house (for now) in the Hollywood Hills. Lewis is sitting with his assistant Shane looking at footage from a photo shoot for his SiriusXM radio show. Jeff hates them all.

The essentials:the format ofHollywood home elevatoris quite familiar to anyone who was a fan ofget scared(raises hand): Jeff is shown in his home, the various people who work for Jeff Lewis Design and/or some cleaning staff are sitting around a table like a family. We see the back of Jeff and Shane's heads in Jeff's car as they drive around the Los Angeles area to various projects. And we see him going into clients' homes to do his first design proposals and then seeing how he progresses once the work starts.

In the first episode, Jeff looks into the humble home of comedian Fortune Feimster and his wife Jax Smith; When he finishes touring the small but well decorated house, he begins to think that the two should put it up for sale and move on to something bigger. Jax is for it, but Feimster, who bought the house with the money he earnedChelsea latelyShe feels good there. Jeff starts talking about landscaping renovations and Fortune keeps trying to redirect him back to interior design work.

Next, he visits the home that Wilmer Valderrama shares with his fiancée Amanda Pacheco and their newborn daughter. Wilmer did a good job with the design and setup, but it definitely reflects his bachelor tastes, and Jeff wants to open up portions to make things lighter and airier. For example, when tearing down a wall in a dining room, the contractor finds an unexpected pipe, which turns out to be furniture left over from the attic where the old roof was left after the new roof was installed.

Other segments of the first episode show Jeff at home with his team and with his daughter Monroe; He wisely chose not to show his face to the cameras. One of his nannies is Zoila Chavez, who retired as Jeff's main housekeeper a few years ago but seems to be back in the fold. Other celebrities she will work with this season include Anthony Anderson, Melissa Rivers, Lamorne Morris, Ashlee Simpson and Evan Ross, Mira Sorvino and Roselyn Sanchez.

What shows will this remind you of?Like I said, if you were a fan ofget scared,then the format ofHollywood home elevatorit's almost identical to this show.

Our opinion:We've been lifelong fans of Jeff Lewis, largely because we knew he was such an outspoken person with a potentially alienating personality that much of what happened along the wayget scared'The race felt pretty real, at least within the confines of reality TV. Lewis has certainly mellowed out since the early days of his previous show, largely due to fatherhood. But on the other hand, he ended up with a long relationship and a close friendship with Pulos, who came up with the idea ofget scaredFirst of all for Bravo. ThenHollywood home elevatorStill has potential to see the "old" Jeff Frank in action.

But without most of the personalities that made the old program more than just a document of Lewis's OCD and inadequacy with the people who work for him, we now have just a standard home improvement program. Sure, it can be fun to watch, say, Anderson clash with Jeff when the project falls behind schedule or goes over budget. And there will always be a moment when Lewis will blow up with a contractor, an employee, or both, whether it's to start a fire under his ass or just because he's in a bad mood. But mostly you'll be dealing with your clients, overseeing renovations and showing the results at the end of the season.

With the gradual departure of people like Pulos and Edward, something is lost. Yes, we enjoy seeing Jeff and his team dining with clients and visiting high-end furniture stores, and we enjoy seeing the results of their transformations. But key to Lewis' old show were the relationships he had and eventually ended with everyone in his circle. We don't see much of that here. The worst conflict we've seen so far is that she's listing her Hollywood Hills home with a high-profile agency instead of her sister-in-law, who she's worked with many times. Big applause.

gender and skin:We have a feeling that after all that's happened about inappropriate behavior in the workplace over the past five years, Jeff will keep the innuendoes he used to spread around the office at bay.

parting shot:In the car with Shane, Jeff is on the phone with his sister-in-law about the price of Fortune and Jax's house, and he is unable to tell her that he is listing his house with another agency.

sleeping star:one of the few remainsget scaredis Megan Weaver, a project manager who is under contract with Jeff and also hosts his satellite radio show. We like Megan because she's one of the few people who could take all of Jeff's crap and put it back together. And now that she's survived the Leaps, she seems to be the only one keeping Jeff in check (except maybe Zoila).

Most of the pilot line:Fortune's wife Jax doesn't let go of her dog for a second. Happy dog, but what about when he needs to go to the bathroom?

Our appeal:pass it onHollywood home elevatorit's not a particularly interesting program if you're not alreadyget scaredfan, and it definitely pales in comparison to this show. But if you've missed Jeff Lewis' special sense of style and work ethic over the last three years, this should give you the solution you need.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but he's not kidding himself: he's a couch potato. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Salon,RollingStone.com,vanityfair.com, Fast Company, and elsewhere.