Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hollywood Houselift With Jeff Lewis’ On Amazon Freevee, Where The Extraordinarily Blunt House Flipper Takes On Celebrity Home Renovations

For the first time in 3 years, since the demise of the Bravo series Flipping Out (and the demise of his relationship with Gage Edward and longtime friendship with Jenni Pulos), Jeff Lewis is back on TV, this time on Amazon’s Freevee. He’s still doing home renovations and interior design, but this time the clients are all celebrities. Will there still be all of the workplace inappropriateness and volcanic anger that Lewis is known for?

HOLLYWOOD HOUSELIFT WITH JEFF LEWIS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

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 pictures of a photo shoot for his SiriusXM radio show. Jeff hates all of them.

The Gist: The format of Hollywood Houselift is pretty familiar for anyone who was a fan of Flipping Out (raises hand): Jeff is shown at his house du jour, the various people who work for Jeff Lewis Design and/or part of the household staff sit around a table like they’re all family. We see the back of Jeff’s and Shane’s heads in Jeff’s car as they drive around the L.A. area to various projects. And we see him go to client houses to make his initial design suggestions then see how things are progressing once work begins.

In the first episode, Jeff looks at the modest home of comedian Fortune Feimster and her wife Jax Smith; by the time he’s done touring the cramped but well-appointed house, he’s starting to think that the two of them should put it on the market and move into something bigger. Jax is all for it, but Feimster, who bought the house with the money she earned on Chelsea Lately, feels comfortable there. Jeff starts to talk about renovations to the landscaping, and Fortune keeps trying to redirect him back to work on the interior.

Then he visits the house Wilmer Valderrama shares with his fiancée, Amanda Pacheco, and their newborn daughter. Wilmer has done a good job with design and décor, but it definitely reflects his tastes when he was single, and Jeff wants to open up portions to make things lighter and airier. When working on knocking out a dining room wall, for instance, the contractor finds an unexpected pipe, which turns out to be an abandoned fixture from the attic, where the old roof was left in place after the new one was installed.

Other segments of the first episode show Jeff at home with his staff and with daughter Monroe; he’s wisely decided not to show her face to the cameras. One of her nannies is Zoila Chavez, who retired from being Jeff’s head housekeeper a few years ago, but seems to be back in the fold. Other celebrities’ he’ll be working with during this season are Anthony Anderson, Melissa Rivers, Lamorne Morris, Ashlee Simpson and Evan Ross, Mira Sorvino, and Roselyn Sanchez.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Like we said, if you were a fan of Flipping Out, then the format of Hollywood Houselift is nearly identical to that show.

Our Take: We’ve been fans of Jeff Lewis for a long time now, mainly because we knew that he is such a blunt person who has a potentially alienating personality, that a lot of what went on during Flipping Out’s run felt pretty real, at least within the confines of reality TV. Lewis has certainly mellowed since his previous show’s early days, mostly attributable to fatherhood. But, then again, he’s ended both a longtime relationship and a close friendship with Pulos, who pitched the idea of Flipping Out to Bravo in the first place. So Hollywood Houselift still holds potential to see the “old” outspoken Jeff in action.

But, without most of the personalities that made the old show more than just a document of Lewis’ OCD and inappropriateness with people who work for him, we now just get a standard home renovation show. Sure, it might be fun to see Anderson, for instance, get into a conflict with Jeff when the project starts running late or over budget. And there is always going to be some moment when Lewis blows up at a contractor, an employee or both, either in an effort to light a fire under their ass or just because he’s in a bad mood. But for the most part, he’s going to be dealing with his clients, supervising renovations, and showing the results at the end of the season.

Something is a bit lost with the gradual departures of people like Pulos and Edward. Yes, we did like to watch Jeff and his employees eating out with clients and touring high-end furniture stores, and we liked to see the results of his transformations. But the key to Lewis’ old show was the relationships he fostered — and eventually ended — with everyone in his circle. We don’t see much of that here. The worst conflict we see so far is that he’s going to list his Hollywood Hills home with a high-end agency instead of his sister-in-law, whom he’s worked with many times. Big whoop.

Sex and Skin: We get the feeling that, given all that’s gone on in the last five years about inappropriate workplace behavior, Jeff is going to keep the innuendo he used to spray all over the office in check.

Parting Shot: In the car with Shane, Jeff talks on the phone with his sister-in-law about pricing out Fortune and Jax’s home, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s listing his house with another agency.

Sleeper Star: One of the few holdovers from Flipping Out is Megan Weaver, who is a project manager that contracts with Jeff and also co-hosts his satellite radio show. We like Megan because she’s one of the few people who have been able to take all of Jeff’s crap and dish it back. And now that she’s outlasted even Pulos, she seems to be the only one there to keep Jeff in check (except for maybe Zoila).

Most Pilot-y Line: Fortune’s wife Jax doesn’t put their dog down for one second. Lucky dog, but what happens when he/she needs to go to the bathroom?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hollywood Houselift isn’t a particularly interesting show if you’re not already a Flipping Out fan, and it definitely pales in comparison to that show. But if you’ve been missing Jeff Lewis’ particular sense of style and, uh, work ethic over the past three years, this should give you the fix you need.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.