Heads up, Florida: 'Party Down South' is staggering your way (2024)

Withhold moral judgment on "Party Down South"for a second, and an incredible fact emerges: CMT has literally turned the most half-baked reality-show premise imaginable into a non-stop tanker train of a franchise that probably can't be stopped by anything short of a catastrophic, self-inflicted derailment.

The show that began as a "Jersey Shore" knockoff with a drawl has, in some ways, exceeded its predecessor. If not in overall cultural impact, certainly in sheer strike-while-the-iron-is-hot efficiency.

Here's where we stand: In February, the first season of "Party Down South 2" ended. (The spinoff used a new cast and the same premise -- take eight immature extroverts, soak them in alcohol and film every second.) The third season of "PDS" immediately launched, featuring most of the original cast including Ryan "Daddy" Richards of Orange Beach. Six of 11 episodes have aired, with the seventh coming on Thursday, April 9. When it ends in May, "PDS 2" returns for its second season - and the "PDS" crew is on deck for production of their fourth season.

Don't forget that the show has already done a couple of holiday specials, and that every new episode now is followed by a half-hour postgame show called "Talk of Shame." Love it or hate it, that is a picture of a streamlined machine in full-on Casey Jones mode. The current season of "PDS" also has a gleaming, merciless efficiency to its production. Incidental music often comes with on-screen credits for the acts, for optimal cross-promotion. The editors are markedly less restrained about following the action into bathroomsand bedrooms, or about showing their cast hitting the bottom of the bottle, whether in tearfulshouting matches or outright incapacitation.

Meanwhile, the folks at TMZ.comare diligently keeping track of the cast's growing list of DUI charges and other real-life misadventures.

It's beginning to appear that we know where the action goes next. The first season of "PDS 2" and the current season of "PDS" were set in the Biloxi area. In a recent interview, Richards said that because it was the off-season, the cast spent more time in its party house rather than out enjoying the local nightlife. At the time, he hinted that Season 4 would be set in a city with more action.

CMT recently revealed that the new season of "PDS 2" will be set amid "another unbridled and epic spring break in St. Petersburg, Fla." (In the same news release, Jayson Dinsmore, CMT's executive vice president of development, crowed that "CMT is on fire. We are producing more original content than ever before and have a rich pipeline of fresh and innovative ideas." While the remark wasn't specificially about "PDS," the show has been one of the network's biggest successes.)

According to media reports emerging in the area,it appears the cast of "PDS" will also film a season in the Tampa/St. Pete locale.

It turns out that back in November, the St. Petersburg Clearwater Film Commission reportedthat it had "Introduced Kenny Dellinger, Unit Manager, 495 Productions to our liaisons in several municipalities and assisted in coordinating meetings to discuss possibility of filming two seasons of 'Party Down South' in the county."In its December report,the commission said it had "Assisted Kenny Dellinger at 495 Productions with introductions, setting up meetings and permitting in preparation for filming two seasons of CMT's Party Down South reality TV show in Pinellas."

Pinellas County, which includesto St. Petersburg, is a peninsula with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Tampa Bay on the other. The mentions of "two seasons" suggest that producers are using the same strategy they used in the Biloxi area: Taping one series of "PDS" and one of "PDS 2" back to back. The train rolls on.

In closing, a few words of wit and wisdom from the cast:

Walt Windham as he pulls up a chair to watch Richards and Hannah "Hott Dogg" Guidry fumble around under the blankets: "I'm just going to watch them get it on. What's weird about that? We're family. We're close. It's called 'building memories.' Somebody's got to remember it."

Windham again, on a theory voiced by Richards that humans were put on Earth by aliens to harvest gold: "I would pay a million dollars just to have Daddy's brain for a day. How does that thing even work?"

Guidry and Murray on the level of personal hygiene required to go out in public: Guidry: "I need a shower so bad." Murray: "It's okay. We're going to a seafood place. You know what seafood places smell like? Worse than us."

Tiffany Heinen, after being grumpily awakened by her housemates' shouting: "Does nobody have any respect for people in this house?" (While not hilarious in and of itself, the remark makes Heinen the current recordholder for the stupidest thing said by any "PDS" cast member ever.)

Windham on the group's love of drama: "most of the time when you throw a grenade towards the middle of us, you would run. That is not what we do here. We run to the grenade."

Murray on the same dynamic: "We are now a house divided. Everybody's pissed off at somebody for something. So, I think the best thing that we can do is get drunk again tomorrow."