'Leave It To Lamas': Lorenzo, Shayne, and Co. ain't no Cleavers

E! is looking to mine some Lamas drama with its new reality show Leave It To Lamas. The show follows the high-strung lifestyle of Shayne Lamas, who won The Bachelor: London Calling in 2008, and with it, Brit-hunk Matt Grant‘s hand in marriage. That made-for-TV romance lasted about two months before the couple split. As she notes in the Oct. 11 (11p.m. ET) premiere: “That one didn’t last.”

Shayne shockingly doesn’t seem interested in a rebound boy toy — and on a more (potentially) wholesome note, the debut episode revolves around her efforts to reconnect her brother AJ with their father, who no longer speaks with him. That father, Lorenzo Lamas, is no stranger to TV himself: He was a soap opera heartthrob in the ’80s (Falcon Crest), a bad-ass Renegade cop in the ’90s, and has starred in scores of B-movies like Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Is Lorenzo Lamas excited about returning to television?

“The only reason I decided to do the show was to help my daughter with her career,” he told us flatly. “That’s it. That’s why I agreed to do the show, that’s why I’m putting myself out there.” Yet much of the show focuses on Shayne’s less-than-subtle attempts to reconcile her brother and father, and Lorenzo doesn’t seem totally averse to that possibility. “I understood that [AJ] would also be on the show. So in the back of my mind I’m thinking this might be a good deal: help my daughter with her career and have a chance at least to talk to my son about our problem,” he says.

Further complicating matters is Shayne and AJ’s mother Michelle (Lorenzo’s ex-wife), who at times comes off as a bit flustered. In one scene, the siblings walk in on her topless with her chest in the refrigerator, and she simply explains: “I’m hot! It’s the menopause thing.” Such moments seem to indicate Shayne is not only “the nucleus of the show,” as her father opines, but also the  sane guiding force for the entire family. But more importantly, do we get to see the rest of the Lamas family baring all to the world? Lorenzo said there were a few instances when he asked for the cameras to be turned off, and it wasn’t when he was arguing with his son — it was his ex-wife.

“There was a tirade,” he admits. “For the most part I’ve gotten along with [Michelle] very well over the years, but as any couple that has had their difficulties understands, there are triggers that can be pulled that release old behaviors. A couple of them got pulled. And my behavior was less than chivalrous.”

With his daughter using an entire reality show to bring him and his son back together, is the reconciliation a foregone conclusion? “Nothing is inevitable with relationships,” Lorenzo told us. “I’ve come to learn that. But there’s a possibility. And with possibility there’s hope. And I do hope honestly that we can re-establish a relationship.”

Photo Credit: E!