What the Greek philosopher Heraclitus can teach us about reality TV. Plus:

• Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest as a commoner
• The science of avalanches
• The American reckoning at the Olympics

In Aidan Zamiri’s recent mockumentary, “The Moment,” Charli XCX plays a version of herself: a pop star who’s contemplating her next move after achieving great success with a Zeitgeist-defining album called “BRAT.” What should she do, Charli wonders, now that the clock on her relevance is ticking? Even though “people are getting sick of [her],” should she “go even harder,” as Kylie Jenner advises her, and continue to celebrate “brat summer forever”? Or should she stop harping on the same string and, instead, recede, regroup, and attempt to remake herself into an avatar for a new era?

Though I felt like Zamiri’s movie didn’t ultimately offer a satisfying answer to the quandary it presents, I found the quandary itself fascinating. How long can a cultural product go on captivating its audience? And what is to be done once it stops? As I watched “The Moment,” I kept thinking how apropos this question was to the Bravo reality series “Vanderpump Rules,” which, on its début, in 2013, began filming the lives of a group of good-looking servers and bartenders at the West Hollywood restaurant SUR, co-owned by a sassy, handsome Brit named Lisa Vanderpump. These protagonists were classic show-business aspirants who, having come to Los Angeles to be within grasping distance of their dreams, fell, in the interim, into service work. The show’s fundamental genius was turning its spotlight on this unglamorous if drama-filled purgatory, and, within a couple of seasons, its subjects, who had been fighting and fucking each other in obscurity for years, had been made into bona-fide stars, known nationwide for their messy love lives and interpersonal skirmishes. They might not have become celebrated models, actors, or singers, as they had initially planned, but with “Vanderpump Rules” their moment had nonetheless arrived, and Bravo was naturally keen to extend it for as long as possible.