Shana, Erin and Robin at a charity gala in Aspen the new in reality series "Secrets of Aspen." (VH1 )

Aspen: playground of the glitterati, where Melanie Griffith, Antonio Banderas, Goldie Hawn, Martina Navratilova and Mariah Carey schuss and dodge papparazzi. A seasonal resort where the average second home costs $6.5 million and where those who serve the wealthy their pricey meals, clean their grand houses or teach them to ski must move down valley to find an affordable place to sleep.

It's a soap opera of haves and have-nots just waiting to be massaged into a TV series like VH1's new "Secrets of Aspen."

That's how the stereotype plays out, anyway. The real Aspen isn't so easily labeled. But for reality TV purposes, the shorthand will do.

Viewers looking for that real Aspen within the televised one may occasionally spot an acquaintance in the background of a street scene. Mostly, however, they will need a wide-screen TV to accommodate the collagen-enhanced lips that define this showcase for purposefully despicable personalities set against gorgeous mountain backdrops. The eight-part expose on what the network calls "the most expensive ZIP code in America" debuts Sunday, Jan. 3, at 9 p.m.

The series drags the historic Colorado town through the reality-soap suds in the same way Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Orange County" painted the California coast as home to vapid and catty women in gated McMansions uniformly getting breast implants. Presumably the viewer is supposed to be at once aghast and disapproving yet transfixed and loyal to the brand.

This voyeuristic end of the "reality" TV experience has always been an uncomfortable mix of enticing and appalling. It's interesting for the rest of us to see how the Botoxing idle rich live, until their lack of a value system becomes pathetic and boring.

But "Secrets of Aspen" is not exactly "Real Housewives of Pitkin County" — for one thing, the five women at the heart of the show are single — but it's close.

The series opens in the summer off-season, with a handful of women vying for clothes, men and, most earnestly, attention as they plot their social strategies. Over time, they will endure hookups and breakups, superficial and poisonous friendships, and devote themselves religiously to partying and gossip.

"Idea clicked"

Knowing that the name of the town was a selling point, Denver-based producers at High Noon Entertainment pitched a "docu-soap" to VH1 emphasizing the upstairs/ downstairs nature of the town.

"They had me at "in Aspen, you either own three homes or you work in three homes," said Jeff Olde, VH1's executive producer who bought the series.

Olde is a Denver native with family in Lakewood.

"The idea immediately clicked with me," he said. "I know Aspen. There has to be a pop culture angle for VH1, and Aspen is a very specific place."

Specifically, the surgically amended and designer-clad bodies sipping champagne in supersized mountain palaces satisfy the requirements of reality TV. Add the unbalanced couplings of rich and poor, young and old (think young ski instructor with wealthy older skier), the tiny size of the off-season community (roughly 5,000 summer residents) that bloats to 40,000 at the peak of the holiday ski season, and the built-in assumption of high-altitude glamour, and you've got a show.

"It's a town of extremes, a tight community but a hierarchy in terms of resources," Olde says. "The location is a character in the story."

Being portrayed as a crazy character in a soap opera probably wasn't the Aspen Chamber of Commerce's first choice. But they're sticking with the "no such thing as bad publicity" angle, according to Alex de L'Arbre, PR representative for the Aspen Chamber of Commerce and Resort Association.

"From a tourism and marketing standpoint, we're glad to have Aspen on TV," she said. Projecting the town as a summer destination is a positive, she figures. "Aspen is often painted as a one-dimensional playground for the rich and famous. That's not the reality. We hope viewers can discern that."

Regardless of the content, nice pictures of the town can't hurt. The crew was "non-invasive" during filming, de L'Arbre said.

High Noon was happy to take on this project, "in our own backyard," according to CEO Jim Berger.

High Noon is a major supplier of more or less unscripted programming — what the company calls "character-driven reality," a reality shaped in the editing room and given a narrative goosing.

High Noon currently has "Tough Love" on VH1 drawing 1.9 million viewers per episode and a "Tough Love: Couples" spinoff slated for next year; "Cake Boss" on TLC and, starting next month, "Factory Made" on Discovery.

"Candid" moments

Uncritical fans of these shows accept them as entirely spontaneous and candid.

"He's spreading the rumor that I'm a hooker!" pouts one the lovelies in the pilot, pretending to be unaware of the camera. See how candid? She wouldn't want a secret like that to get out on national television.

Who knew Aspenites call each other (rhymes with "witches") on Main Street?

Berger, a former KUSA staffer now shuttling between Denver and L.A. offices, said his company would love to follow the same six women and one man through a winter season. Time and ratings will tell.

The idea for the series emerged five years ago when Berger sold MTV a similar concept set in the Vail Valley; it never made it to the pilot stage.

To find the players at the heart of the show, Berger's company put an ad in the Aspen Times, talked to folks in bars and interviewed 50-70 people.

Laura, Kat, Star, Brooke, Erin and Shana are all single women in their 20s-40s, a clique who already knew each other and had percolating rivalries.

Laura, a controlling drama queen, is billed as "the town's most controversial woman."

Brooke, a younger version of Laura, summons all her resources to complain, "she's not the boss of me!"

Most shop more than they work. Some get massages; Kat schleps a massage table. The one man in the piece, the designer Ben, is gay and Erin's best friend.

When they're not dissing each other, the women compete for eligible men. In the pilot, one woman literally grabs a bachelor away from another on the dance floor.

Is it true Aspen is short on straight, unmarried men?

"That's a stereotype," the Chamber's de L'Arbre said. "As a woman in Aspen, I can say we're better off than a lot of resorts."

VH1 completes the marketing loop on "Secrets of Aspen" by offering onscreen directions to the network's website to buy the music heard within the show.

The titillation, the sight of misbehaving rich people, is the real draw, although the producer has a kinder description.

"At its core," Berger says, "it's a relationship show."

Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 orjostrow@denverpost.com