https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-ending-season-20-e-kuwtk-1234762635/

The Kardashian-Jenner family announced today it has decided to end their long-running hit E! reality show after 14 seasons. The final season is set to air in early 2021. "It is with heavy hearts that we’ve made the difficult decision as a family to say goodbye to Keeping Up with the Kardashians," Kim Kardashian wrote on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/CE5AwirA4Cx/). "After what will be 14 years, 20 seasons, hundreds of episodes and numerous spin-off shows, we are beyond grateful to all of you who’ve watched us for all of these years – through the good times, the bad times, the happiness, the tears, and the many relationships and children. We’ll forever cherish the wonderful memories and countless people we’ve met along the way. Without Keeping Up with The Kardashians, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has watched and supported me and my family these past 14 incredible years. This show made us who we are and I will be forever in debt to everyone who played a role in shaping our careers and changing our lives forever." E! also released a statement, saying: “E! has been the home and extended family to the Kardashian-Jenners for what will be 14 years, featuring the lives of this empowering family. Along with all of you, we have enjoyed following the intimate moments the family so bravely shared by letting us into their daily lives. While it has been an absolute privilege and we will miss them wholeheartedly, we respect the family’s decision to live their lives without our cameras. It is not our final goodbye yet, we are excited to have the new season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians launching on September 17 with the final season airing in 2021. We thank the entire extended family and our production partners, Bunim Murray and Ryan Seacrest Productions for embarking on this global phenomenon together.”

Keeping Up with the Kardashians' impact on pop-culture is undeniable, but the show has felt behind the times in recent years (https://themuse.jezebel.com/the-klosing-of-a-khapter-keeping-up-with-the-kardashia-1844991772)

"Not only did it turn every member of the Kardashian-Jenner family (and some of their various significant others) into internationally recognized celebrities, it also shifted what 'celebrity' even entailed," Justice Namaste says in reaction to the E! reality show ending in early 2021 after 20 seasons and 14 years (https://www.primetimer.com/item/Keeping-Up-with-the-Kardashians-is-ending-after-14-years-and-20-seasons-1KSX2w). "Over its years on air, the show spawned countless memes and pop culture moments, millions of arguments on the internet about cultural appropriation, and a small village of Kardashian/Jenner children. But in recent years, it was impossible not to notice that KUWTK had begun to feel redundant and behind the times. Not to state the obvious, but the way we interact with celebrities (and celebrity gossip), is drastically different now than it was 13 years ago. The prevalence of social media has dramatically changed the access that the average person can potentially have to the lives of the wealthy and famous, and the expectations of fans have shifted accordingly. Many of the show’s most dramatic storylines in recent years have been in the news as they’re happening in real-time, leaving KUWTK to try to find a way to make the events feel newly dramatic many months and thousands of news cycles after they’ve already been hashed out by gossip blogs and internet commenters. Think of the Jordyn Woods and Tristan Thompson cheating drama, or even about any of Kanye’s recent antics—odds are you heard about them on Twitter long before the show had the opportunity to talk about them. It seems possible the decision to shutter KUWTK at this moment could also have been influenced by the shifting societal views on celebrity and wealth. We are no longer in the days of MTV Cribs, when society was fascinated and awe-struck by extravagant displays of wealth. The U.S. is currently experiencing its second recession in less than two decades and is in the midst of a literal pandemic, leaving people with less and less interest in the attempts of the rich and famous to flex on the rest of us with their expensive cars and luxurious vacations. But regardless of whether you kept up with the Kardashians enthusiastically or reluctantly, it’s impossible to deny the impact the family had on not only reality television but on the entire landscape of popular culture." ALSO: KUWTK "gets a lot of unearned hate, but it’s a television classic as good as just about any beloved old-timey sitcom." (https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/1303460818088939520)

Good riddance to the Kartrashyans!

I won't miss them.

They’ve been left behind.

I Won't miss them either.

I will miss them hopefully the show comes out on DVD

Wont miss them either :wave:

After 14 years, Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall, Kylie, Rob, Scott & Kris are saying goodbye to "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."

The final season premieres Thursday, March 18, only on E!.



cPQ1W0jwEoQ

Good riddance!

E! To Wrap Up "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" with Reunion Special Hosted by Andy Cohen
by Alexandra Del Rosario
April 7, 2021


E! will bid the Kardashian-Jenner family one final farewell with a reunion special hosted by Andy Cohen.

Upon the final season of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians", Cohen will join Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner and Scott Disick to reflect on the reality television show’s 20-season history.

https://deadline.com/2021/04/e-keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-reunion-special-andy-cohen-1234729581/

Keeping Up with the Kardashians ends 14 years and 20 seasons on a whimper (https://www.thedailybeast.com/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-ends-not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper)

The E! series finale capping off 272 episodes was "your typical boring series finale fare," says Jordan Julian. "Not even fans of the Kardashians will find anything interesting or revelatory in this finale. The show is so tangential to their fame now, which exists largely on social media and in their entrepreneurial ventures, that it doesn’t have anything new to say. It hasn’t for years. Once, the Kardashians were unique in the way they shared every moment of their lives with viewers—just look at Kourtney, who gave birth to her son Mason with an entire camera crew in the delivery room. Now, the famous family can’t leave home without being papped, let alone keep news of divorces, relationships, and pregnancies under wraps. With hundreds of millions of Instagram followers, they clog social feeds with snapshots of their children and partners. This renders the show’s dramatic story arcs, like whether Kim and Kanye will split up (they will) and whether Kourtney and Scott will get back together (they won’t, because she’s dating Travis Barker and he’s dating a 19-year-old), irrelevant. It’s a natural end to a show they don’t need anymore. The most striking takeaway from the Keeping Up with the Kardashians series finale is just how effective the titular family’s rabid, wholly transparent pursuit of fame really was. A tired critique of the Kardashians, often leveled snobbishly by people who have never watched the show, is that they are famous for being famous. This is obviously no longer true and maybe it never was. They’re famous for helming million-dollar makeup empires, for coupling up with rappers and athletes, for sharing heavily filtered photos on Instagram, and, of course, for appearing on a hit television show for over a decade. If that means the Kardashians are famous simply for being famous, then the same can be said of countless other popular celebrities. To be honest, the Kardashians deserve much of the credit for originating the brand of social media celebrity that dominates pop culture today, for better or worse." Julian adds: "The Keeping Up with the Kardashians series finale most definitely does not mark the end of the Kardashians. Instead, Thursday night’s episode signifies the end of a 14-year televised experiment in manufacturing modern celebrity, one that—for better or for worse—has proven to be an undeniable success."

ALSO:


Keeping Up with the Kardashians held an unflattering mirror to America (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/critics-notebook-keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-held-an-unflattering-mirror-up-to-america-1234966637/): "Watching KUWTK has been like witnessing the story of America unfold — replete with its contradictions, vampiric relationship to Black people, obsession with remaking itself, capitalistic dysfunction and almost comical lack of self-awareness," says Lovia Gyarkye. "The early episodes, running about 30 minutes, were shorter, lower-quality productions that possessed a certain charm. The family was trying to “overcome” Kim’s sex-tape 'scandal,' an endeavor that eventually morphed into an effortful attempt to ascend the mountain of celebrity culture. Seeing the Kardashian-Jenners grasp for a world that did not necessarily want them made it easier to accept their often silly, histrionic behavior — and at times even feel sorry for them. Then, the tides changed. The family figured out the formula to fame, and applied it aggressively. Several of the Kardashian-Jenner women transformed right before our eyes: thickening their lips, hips and butts, rocking box braids, elongating their nails and publicly aligning themselves with influential Black men. They wantonly lifted their aesthetics from Black women, and became cool without acknowledging the source of their inspiration — as many white Americans inside pop culture and out have done, and continue to do. Naturally, they were rewarded: They graced magazine covers, launched business ventures and attended high-profile events like the Met Gala. They were no longer the punchline; they were the plot. After they changed their looks, they changed their stories — or perhaps the two happened in tandem; it’s hard to say. Kim’s sex-tape fiasco was read as feminist (despite her protestations)...The truth behind these narratives was slippery and decidedly not the point. The Kardashian-Jenners, after all, weren’t like other celebrities: They had made themselves, and those selves were aspirational."
KUWTK changed the nature of celebrity (https://www.theringer.com/tv/2021/6/10/22527258/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-series-finale-kim-jenner-legacy): "The entertainment landscape was shifting in the late aughts, as reality TV and social media cut into industry gatekeepers’ ability to, well, gate-keep," says Alyssa Bereznak. "The blockbuster success of American Idol proved there were few things more compelling to an audience than a nobody who was on their way to becoming somebody. So when Keeping Up With the Kardashians debuted on E! that October (2007), it positioned itself as a zhuzhed-up, late-capitalism Brady Bunch: a blended family of well-off strivers who had an insatiable appetite for as much wealth and notoriety as they could muster. The premise immediately struck a chord with Americans, who had long equated fame with success, and—thanks to a hyperactive era of paparazzi and weekly gossip rags—were witnessing up close the breakdown of a hierarchy that once defined the entertainment world. Within a month of its debut, KUWTK became the most-watched show with women 18-34 in its Sunday-night time slot. Still, such botox-injected ambition felt gauche to mainstream critics. The New York Times worried the program was 'purely about some desperate women climbing to the margins of fame.' The show’s haters distilled that critique into a cutting taunt: that the Kardashian-Jenners were simply 'famous for being famous.' Nearly 293 episodes later, the family’s self-perpetuated fame is clearly a feature, not a bug. Far before TikTokers were live-streaming themselves sleeping, Kris and Ko. pulled back the curtain juuust enough so we could see the mechanisms of the celebrity industry."
Meet the crew behind KUWTK (https://ew.com/tv/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-finale-crew-interviews/): "I got to go to so many cool places," says lighting supervisor Landon Hosto. "We went to Greece, Thailand, St. Barts, London, France. Being with them, we didn't stay at the Motel 8. Because production wanted to be close to them, they didn't want to lose any time getting the crew from the cheap hotels to the rich hotels, so you had to stay at the rich hotels." Audio supervisor Erin Paxton adds: "This show has allowed me to see the world: Japan, Cuba, Bora Bora, Costa Rica. I mean, some of the craziest places I never even dreamt of going to. And when we go on these trips, they're these crazy adventures together, and we're all a unit, and it's such a beautiful thing. I've never, ever worked on a show before or after that has been so filled with laughter and craziness."
KUWTK will be remembered for exploiting Black women's aesthetics (https://time.com/6072750/kardashians-blackfishing-appropriation): "The white mainstream popularization of Black style or features by way of Blackfishing, much of which has been perpetuated by the Kardashians and Jenners, presents a sobering paradox: while it shows that beauty and body standards are shifting as they’ve always done, this change comes by way of white women, ultimately to the detriment of Black women," says Cady Lang. "The shape a person is born with is nothing to judge, but Kim and other white women with curves like hers aren’t subjected to the centuries-long objectification, hypersexualization and disdain that Black women have faced for their bodies. In this, the Kardashian-Jenner sisters’ influence is tip-to-toe: while Black women like Florence 'Flo-Jo' Griffith-Joyner were subject to racist and classist stereotypes for sporting elaborate nail art and acrylics—long markers of Black women’s style and self-expression—Kylie was hailed for launching an innovative trend when she began showing off her nail art on social media."
E! is ready for its post-Kardashian era (https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-e-1234991924/): “The Kardashians allowed us to take people inside celebrity the way that we want to, where we celebrate their fandom and not tear it down,” says Rod Aissa, NBCUniversal Television’s executive vice president of entertainment unscripted content. “We’re focused on what else we can do in pop fandom and how we can celebrate all things Hollywood, and we’re hyper-focused on reestablishing the brand and making very strategic moves because the whole landscape has changed. We want to look at our brand and say, ‘This is what we stand for,’ even outside of the Kardashians.”
Recalling KUWTK's 10 most memorable moments (https://nypost.com/article/iconic-keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-moments/)
Watch Jimmy Kimmel's "emotional goodbye" to KUWTK (https://twitter.com/JimmyKimmelLive/status/1403238798591283202)

Good riddance! And don't come back!

Good riddance! And don't come back!
*Comes back eight months later, explaining how the world “needs” more “entertainment and realness and decency”*

Hulu's The Kardashians is listless and missing the campy fun of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/hulus-the-kardashians-1235128929/)

Compare the first two episodes of The Kardashians to the early episodes of E!'s Keeping Up with the Kardashians, "and it’s hard to believe we are watching the same people," says Lovia Gyarkye. "This more polished and stylized show is still an experiment in marketing, selling viewers an unattainable aesthetic and lifestyle, displaying dizzying amounts of wealth and eliciting contradictory emotions. As I’ve written before (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/kim-kardashian-west-snl-review-1235029290/), it doesn’t really matter whether you abhor, admire or envy the Kardashians. Reactions to their antics are part of the massive PR machination central to their relevancy and economic status. But whereas Keeping Up managed to maintain a level of camp, The Kardashians strips away any bits of fun, leaving only the rigid ethos of a family that has mastered being famous. The new show is plagued by an aggressive ennui. Not even the sleek opening credits — drone shots offering glimpses of each family member’s busy life backed by Silk Sonic’s funky hit '777' — can shake off the listlessness. Kris, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall and Kylie have been filmed for so long that this critic wonders if even they sometimes find themselves surprised that the cameras are still rolling."

ALSO:


The Kardashians will satisfy Keeping Up with the Kardashian fans, but it has nothing new to say (https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kardashians-are-back-on-tv-with-even-less-to-say): "I wrote in my review of the Keeping Up with the Kardashians finale (https://www.thedailybeast.com/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-ends-not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper) last year that the Kardashians have transcended the need for the show, and there’s nothing in the two episodes of the new series made available for review that convinces me otherwise," says Jordan Julian. "With their omnipresence on social media, they’ve outrun the pace of TV production. Even 8-year-old North is on TikTok now, much to Kanye’s chagrin. We already know the gender of Kylie’s baby formerly known as Wolf Webster, we know Kim passes the baby Bar Exam on her fourth try, and we have seen an entire photo album’s worth of pictures of Kourtney and Travis’ engagement. There are literally zero stakes. It’s difficult to think of another show that so transparently exists solely to make its billionaire subjects even richer."
The Kardashians is slicker, having taken inspiration from rival reality shows (https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/entertainment/reality-tv/the-kardashians-review-disney-comment): "When KUWTK paved the way for reality TV, The Kardashians has learned from it - and that's not a bad thing for this new era for the family who are trying to separate themselves from their past and step out on their own (read: away from Kanye)," says Helen Daly. "The family are more relaxed this time around. Sure, there's drama in their life but it doesn't feel like a ticking time bomb is about to go off constantly - it's chilled. Gone are the days of the sisters fighting, and here's familial love and support. It's echoing back to the early seasons of KUWTK where the family really only had each other, not fame. The editing is wittier, too, with the confessionals being cut in at smarter moments. For the first time, the family is saying what they really think. When Scott and Khloe talk about moving on from Kourt, Khloe freely admits he still loves her, saying what we're all thinking."
Kardashian family's obsession with the past keeps The Kardashians from moving forward (https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/kardashians-hulu-review-1235228366/): "The trouble with having mastered reinvention is that visions of your past selves have a way of popping up," says Daniel D'Addario. “The Kardashians is putatively looking to the future — its subjects are on a new platform, having swapped in Hulu for E!, and are sumptuously shot by a production that seems to spare no expense...But it’s obsessed, in a way that holds this series back from whatever it might be, with the past. As a series about the contemporary lives of Kim Kardashian and family, this is about as well-made and incisive as one could expect; take that however it means to you. But as an argument for the continued dominance of the Kardashians in our culture, it finds itself with little novel to say."
The Kardashians is fascinating in how it shows celebrity dynamics (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/14/kardashians-hulu-disney-plus-review): "The richest part of the new Hulu show is witnessing snippets of their now gravitational celebrity orbit, however mediated – the familiarity with which famous performers from James Corden to Amy Schumer enter and exit the screen," says Adrian Horton. "Schumer advises Kim on her SNL monologue with actual pushback to her jokes (one that is sharper than you’d expect). There’s something interesting, in a work-porn adjacent way, in watching Kim name-drop 'Dave' (Chappelle) for monologue advice or request SNL booker (and Ben Affleck ex) Lindsey Shookus for last-minute line changes to spare the unstable Kanye. Interesting and somewhat revulsive, too, to see James Corden’s hype-man advise Khloé to ignore social media – this, for a woman who has gaslit followers on her manipulated body and images and participated in her own fair share of online bullying. These asides stick the most because they hint both at the celebrity ecosystems whose rupture the Kardashians rode and remade, and the casualness with which the ultra-famous go about their well-oiled days. Nothing has changed and yet everything is different now, elevated. The Kardashians have stuck together."
Kim Kardashian's sex tape scandal hits different on The Kardashians (https://ew.com/tv/tv-reviews/the-kardashians-review-hulu/): "The tape was released without Kim's consent, but that didn't matter," says Kristen Baldwin. "By the time Keeping Up With the Kardashians premiered in October 2007, most viewers saw Kim Kardashian as a fame-hungry wannabe who parlayed some purloined home-movie porn into an on-camera career. In the KUWTK series premiere, Kris arrives with the exciting news that Tyra Banks wants to have Kim as a guest on her daytime talk show...Contrast that to the series premiere of The Kardashians in 2022. During the aforementioned family barbecue, Kim's son Saint runs up to show her something that popped up on his Roblox game. It's an ad featuring a picture of his mommy's cry face and touting 'unreleased footage' of her 20-year-old sex tape. (Fortunately, Saint was not yet old enough to read.)...Naturally, Kim is mortified, angry, confused — but she's also ready. Lawyers are summoned for an emergency conference call...Once, that sex tape defined her. Now, Kim Kardashian is the medium and the message. Love her or hate her, she's earned that new font."
Kim Kardashian humanizes and energizes The Kardashians (https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092768632/kardashians-hulu-review-kim-kardashian-kylie-jenner): "In the two episodes released early to critics — the first of which dropped on Hulu Thursday — it's Kim whose life elevates The Kardashians into something more compelling than the latest unscripted soap opera wrapped around a C-list celebrity family," says Eric Deggans. He adds: "Honestly, if you hated this family before now, Hulu's The Kardashians won't change your mind. And some fans will likely find this show something of a rehash, centered on incidents that have already been picked apart by TMZ and People magazine months ago. I'm also still trying to figure out why a show distributed on adult-oriented streamer Hulu bleeps out the curse words. But it is also true there is still something quite compelling – and disturbingly of the moment – about watching a family whose business is being famous go about their business on camera."
Executive producer Ben Winston met with more than 50 potential showrunners, but kept hidden that the show involved the Kardashian family (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/kardashians-hulu-kim-pete-kanye-kylie-kendall-1235198499/): “When we were interviewing showrunners, I wouldn’t ever say what it was for,” says Winston, one of the partners -- along with James Corden -- at production company Fulwell 73, which is producing The Kardashians. “We said, ‘It’s about a group of six billionaire businesswomen, who are connected in some way and they all run the incredible companies,'" he says. "People were like, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing story.’ And then I would say that they are sisters, and everyone was like, ‘Oh my god, that sounds like the most fascinating family.’ They weren’t thinking it was a famous family. That’s the approach that we wanted to have.” Winston adds that he wanted the show to come across as a docuseries.
Kim Kardashian says her family benefitted from taking a year off from filming (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/kim-kardashian-kris-jenner-hulu-premiere-1235127339/): “I think once we announced that we were going to be stopping our show, just different offers came in from different streaming services, and that was really intriguing to us and just seemed different,” she says. “We wanted to do something different, but right away we were like, ‘We miss this. Who were we kidding, we should be doing this.’ We got a year off from filming, and I think that was really beneficial for our souls just to really soak it up. But the filming this time is different, and I just love it.”
Filming separately and for streaming will lead to a faster turnaround time, so viewers won't have to wait long for real-world events to be shown on screen (https://variety.com/2022/tv/features/kardashians-hulu-kris-kim-khloe-1235198939/): “We wanted it to be as current as possible,” Kim says. “We hated how long we had to wait. That was like the death of us, because once we got over something, we had to rehash it all over again.” As for joining Hulu, Khloé Kardashian says: “We wanted to be with someone that’s tech forward, so we’re with the times. For us to be still on cable was just not so on brand for us.” Kourtney Kardashian, meanwhile, believes the Hulu show will be the last chapter of her career in reality TV. I see myself living in another city,” she says. “I don’t think I see myself filming on a show in five years. I would probably envision myself, like, just living.” When asked if she truly considers a life away from the cameras, Kim laughs. “No,” she says. “I don’t.”

The Kardashians appears to be creating a completely different timeline to gloss over the Astroworld tragedy (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniesoteriou/kardashians-accused-faking-narrative-astroworld-tragedy)

While Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner, who is Travis Scott's girlfriend, were watching him perform at Astroworld last fall, the rest of the Karadashian family were celebrating Kris Jenner's birthday on the same night. "But, of course, Kendall and Kylie were notably absent that evening, and viewers were horrified by the way that the show handled the reason why," says Stephanie Soteriou. "Not only was the festival completely ignored, a storyline involving Kendall was seemingly faked to avoid mentioning Astroworld." ALSO: Why The Kardashians is a better show than Keeping Up with the Kardashians ever was (https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-kardashians-is-a-better-show-than-keeping-up-ever-was).