Alex Baskin

Alex Baskin isn’t exactly a household name unless you’re knee-deep in reality TV marathons or trading hot takes on Twitter about last night’s episode of Vanderpump Rules. Still, behind all that glitz and manufactured drama, there’s a guy pulling the strings and making sure the chaos is properly captured for your binging pleasure. Baskin’s fingerprints are all over some of the most bingeable reality TV out there—Vanderpump Rules being the crown jewel, obviously, but also The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which is practically a cultural touchstone at this point. Baskin’s knack for capturing the wild, messy, and sometimes painfully relatable lives of people with far too much money and not enough filter is basically unmatched. He’s got this way of making you care about arguments over dinner reservations and who’s feuding with who this week. Like, how does he get you so invested in Lisa Vanderpump’s latest restaurant drama or a Beverly Hills housewife’s meltdown over spilled champagne? Honestly, it’s a skill. If you want to go even further back, there’s Teen Line, which, okay, didn’t exactly take the world by storm, but still showed early flashes of Baskin’s ability to dig into raw, real moments—even if they’re wrapped up in glossy, over-the-top packaging. Basically, if you’ve ever lost an entire weekend to watching people argue in designer clothes, odds are pretty good that Alex Baskin had a hand in it. Reality TV wouldn’t be half as juicy—or as fun—without him stirring the pot.