James Argent after failing a drugs test. He attended rehab over Christmas 2014. He returned to "The Only Way Is Essex" in 2015, he has lost weight and is a reformed character of his former self. Since 2010, Argent has been a cast member of the ITV2 reality series "The Only Way Is Essex". He had appeared in series 1 with his girlfriend Lydia Bright, who also appeared in series 2 and is also best friends with fellow "TOWIE" cast member Mark Wright. Finally, Argent opened his own theatre during at the studios in Essex on "TOWIE" Live in December 2012. In
Reality television plots and subject matters on reality television are more authentic and more engaging than in scripted dramas, writing that scripted network television "remains dominated by variants on the police procedural... in which a stock group of characters (ethnically, sexually, and generationally diverse) grapples with endless versions of the same dilemma. The episodes have all the ritual predictability of Japanese Noh theater," while reality television is "the liveliest genre on the set right now. It has engaged hot-button cultural issues – class, sex, race – that respectable television... rarely touches." Television critic James Poniewozik wrote that reality shows like "Deadliest Catch"