‘Southern Charm’ Meets ‘The Bachelor’ In The Incredibly Endearing ‘RelationShep’

Welcome to the winter binge-watch sure to warm your heart. Bravo’s RelationShep premieres tonight and finds our favorite partyboy on the hunt for love. The Southern Charm star enlists his pals all across the country to set him up on dates with pretty ladies, and the ones he clicks with most get invited back to Charleston to live in a house and compete for his heart. In other words, this Southern Charm/The Bachelor mash-up is the perfect show to hold you over until we get new seasons of those shows in 2018.

While Shep makes it nearly impossible to not love him already on Southern Charm, just wait until you get a glimpse of him in action here. He flips back and forth from a suave, confident gent to a disheveled dork depending on the female company he’s keeping at the time. Credit to him here: not every date is dreamy. They can be awkward, red flag-flying encounters where chemistry is nowhere in sight. But when it is, it really is. From drinks and dinners to Shakespeare parties and horse riding, it’s fun to watch the tall, good-looking ladies’ man get goofy and embrace his fish out of water status. However, in other environments we get a clear look at just how intelligent this voracious reader can be — and how he craves that in a partner. Not that that means he’s smart enough to not invite a third party on a date though.

There are facepalms aplenty as Shep stumbles through date after date in a handful of cities around the country. You’ll get just as invested in who makes it back to Charleston as you do when the Bachelor brings his prospects around the world with him. So who will land Shep’s heart? RelationShep only proves to be more exciting as you continue to watch, as his Southern Charm pals chime in, and as he gets you feeling a few warm and fuzzies in the process. Because what our favorite southern stud understands here, much more than he understands women, is how to be charming and endearing and not a total douchebag — especially like so many men with such promising prospects could easily be. He’s had his moments in the past, sure, but he takes this premise appropriately seriously enough and works on swapping vanity for vulnerability here. It’s what makes this a dating show that is actually fun to watch, not one that will have you rolling your eyes or breaking out in stress hives. You’ll really be rooting for him to find love…and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll be left with a Shep-shaped crush to cling to.

Where to watch RelationShep