Shannen Says

Concept and development

On July 20, 2011, it was announced that Doherty and Iswarienko would star in a then-untitled project on WE tv which executive producers said would showcasing Doherty from an "unfiltered, honest, and vulnerable" perspective. The show's working title was The Shannen Doherty Project. WE tv senior vice president John Miller called it a perfect fit for the network: "It's what WE tv does best – present stories that showcase the wild ride of modern-day life from a woman's perspective". According to a press release, the series would center on Doherty "tak[ing] viewers on the hilariously bumpy ride of planning her wedding". It tracks the events leading up to Doherty's third wedding, following her two previous marriages with American actor Ashley Hamilton and American poker player Rick Salomon that ended in 1994 and 2003 respectively. It would also cover the renovation of her home in Malibu, California. Its promotion emphasized that the show would focus on conflict between Doherty and Iswarienko, and it was cited as an example of how WE tv was "carving out a place among women with celeb-driven reality series".

The idea of a reality series originated when Doherty and Iswarienko were interested in documenting the weeks leading up to their wedding in a filming and production style similar to Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Deadliest Catch. Doherty had previously worked on reality television, hosting Scare Tactics and Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty, and participating on the tenth season of Dancing with the Stars. She called the project her "pact" with Iswarienko to "sort of chronicle this time in our lives and let future brides and future grooms know that [it's] not just you and that goes through the stress". According to Doherty, it was a "totally different thing" and a way to celebrate her third marriage: "Can you bring all of those qualities to reality TV? Can you be that brutally honest, that completely raw, but with the quality of those two shows where you do use different cameras and you do want it to look spectacular?"

Doherty planned to develop the idea with her own production company, originally partnering with an unidentified television network. However, the series was picked up by WE tv when Doherty thought that the previous network was making the material "train wrecky". Miller said that he approved the series after seeing its pitch, and he found Doherty an "insanely compelling" person to watch on reality television.

To prepare for filming, Doherty watched former Beverly Hills, 90210 co-star Tori Spelling's reality show about her relationship with husband Dean McDermott and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. In a New York Daily News interview, she resisted comparisons to Kim Kardashian's publicized wedding and divorce from basketball player Kris Humphries: "I'm not Kim Kardashian!" Doherty described the series as a documentary, rather than a reality show, saying that she was "not a reality star" and was "still an actor". She also called the project "the best wedding video in the world". Before its premiere, Barry Walsh of Realscrean.com described it as a docuseries. The show received additional publicity when Spelling offered to plan Doherty's wedding during an interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada: "I'll do the wedding, I could probably comment on the wedding she'd want 20 years ago, but that wouldn't make any sense."

Filming and cast

Doherty and Iswarienko purchased a RED camera to film the series. According to Doherty, they decided to purchase the camera equipment themselves to make the show "a cut above the rest as far as our crew and how it looks". She described the filming technique as allowing for a more-authentic look into her life: "It had to be honest, it had to be truthful, and it had to look fantastic". Asked by an interviewer about rumors that she was a "bridezilla", Doherty said that the series would show all aspects of her preparation for the wedding and was meant to "bar[e] the good, the bad and the ugly”. Its opening ("Everyone thinks they know you") was described by Doherty as another way to show her real life, in contrast with her reputation for being difficult.

The series was filmed over a seven-week period at the couple's home in Malibu and nearby locations. Production began in August 2011, with an original release date scheduled for January 2012. The title was set as Shannen Says before its premiere, and the wedding took place and was filmed on October 15, 2011. The series was produced by Doherty's company, No Apologies Production. Although she was initially hesitant about the lack of privacy during filming, she felt more comfortable when the bedroom was set as off-limits for the show. David Tutera, a wedding planner and host of My Fair Wedding with David Tutera, acted as Doherty's event planner. The series also featured Doherty's friends, Roxana Zal, Tim Bitici, and Roger Castillo, and her mother, Rosa. According to Doherty, her mother was well-received by fans on Twitter. She told her mother: "You know what? I think you should be super happy with the way that you’re coming across, because you were yourself and you didn’t sit there with a hair and makeup team for two hours, you didn’t have a stylist. You were just a mom."

Broadcast history and release

A series sneak peek was released prior to the show's debut. Shannen Says premiered on April 10, 2012 in the United States on WE tv at 10:00-9:00 pm Eastern and Pacific, after it was initially scheduled for April 3. The second episode aired on Tuesday night in the same time slot, and two episodes were aired every Sunday night in the same time slot until the end of the season. The series was commercially unsuccessful. Its premiere was watched by a total of 172,000 people, ranking below the debut of Dance Moms: Miami. The rest of the episodes also had low ratings, scoring below most of the programs in its time slot. It was broadcast internationally on WE tv Asia. Senior vice president and general manager of AMC and Sundance Channel Global Harold Gronenthal said the decision to broadcast Shannen Says, The Slap, Hell on Wheels, and Breaking Bad, indicated that network executives were "committed to providing a diverse line-up of high quality programming to serve audiences".

Doherty later said that she did not intend to pursue a second season, describing the series as a "one-off" created to capture the "time in a couple’s life where they get married and how stressful it can be". To a suggestion of a second-season storyline of a pregnancy and child, Doherty said: "Oh god — no, no, no, no!" The series ended on May 12, 2012; a writer from the Futon Critic reported that it was cancelled after being "on hiatus for longer than 12 months – without any news about its future". The series was released on the iTunes Store on April 10, 2012, as Shannen Says, Season 1. All episodes have been available from Amazon Video since 2012. It has not been made available on Blu-ray or DVD.

Critical reception

Critical response to Shannen Says was mixed following its premiere. A reviewer from Life & Style magazine gave the series three stars out of four, calling it "very entertaining", and a writer from Celebuzz described it as "hilarious, sweet and serious all at the same time". HitFix's Geoff Berkshire praised the show for being "look[ing] great and mov[ing] swiftly from one drama to the next", and called Doherty "equal doses crazy and amusing". Alternatively, SouthCoastToday.com's Kevin McDonough criticized the show for attempting "to compensate for the lack of drama in Doherty's life with the manic production of a reality TV-sized wedding".

Doherty was widely praised by television critics when the series first aired. Reviewing the premiere, a contributor to The Huffington Post wrote that Doherty was "every bit the bad girl fans have been loving to hate to love for the past twenty-odd years" and a good fit for reality television. MTV's Maisy Fernandez preferred it to Jeannie Garth: A Little Bit Country, a reality show starring Doherty's former Beverly Hills, 90210 co-star Jennie Garth. Although Fernandez praised Doherty for creating "the most compelling reality TV", she criticized her choice of television network: "The likelihood of someone finding this show accidentally is minimal".