Here's something fun to try should you ever find yourself out in New York and lacking a conversation topic: Tell people you used to live in Los Angeles and/or are thinking about moving to Los Angeles, and you'll immediately have a dozen people in hipster hats telling you why all things New York are superior to Southern California. Then use Bravo's newest reality TV show, The Real Housewives of New York City, to bury their theories.

True, at first viewing, the New York ladies don't seem all that different from their Orange County counterparts. They're rich, they dress too young for their age, their children will someday need therapy. But where the Orange County gals bask in their wealth, their New York City counterparts are more of the transparent social-climbing variety. Déclassé! In the series premiere airing tonight, the ladies do little more than show off—there are au pairs and car services, shopping sprees and big houses in the Hamptons. But as the ladies display their goods and score a little ink in the society gossip pages, the scene grows tired, and it's soon obvious that these ladies aren't exactly the queens of the city.

Whereas it's easy to buy the Orange County chicks as the queen bees of California's Coto, the New York City housewives have a much bigger pond to rule—and rule they do not. Despite homes in the Hamptons and hired help, it's clear that being part of what one of them calls "the Manhattan elite" is a constant struggle. They lack the mega wealth of, say, the fictional families on Gossip Girl, or even your average I-banker, for that matter. In one scene, housewife Alex and her husband/gay boyfriend go on a shopping spree, dropping five digits on non-fabulous clothes. Watching her model outfit after outfit for her doting husband, it's hard not to wonder why someone so into fashion doesn't drop some pocket change on a decent haircut and dye job. From their bad hair to their bad parenting, there's a sense that these women should know better. While the OC housewives' ignorance is always entertaining and occasionally sympathy-inducing, watching these ladies may produce occasional fits of rage.

It doesn't help that the children on the show are noticeably younger. There's a certain entertainment value in watching the 19-year-olds on Orange County struggle to adapt to junior-college life while mom proposes a mother-daughter Playboy shoot; it's less entertaining and more sad to watch the New York City moms poorly parent their pre-teens. The season premiere finds Jill busily arranging to send her young daughter Allyson to an expensive detox facility to help her lose her baby fat. Meanwhile, Alex and her husband are downright annoying as they go on and on about raising their children bilingually.

While the Real Housewives of Orange County have their daughters take over the family tradition of attending parties at the Playboy mansion, one of their New York City counterparts buys a puppy for their young son. Guess which makes for better television? The Real Housewives of New York City is surely worth watching, but their blonde, silicone-enhanced West Coast counterparts are a lot more fun.