The Real World is now anything but

As crazy as it sounds, MTV has renewed The Real World for four more seasons. The announcement came as The Real World: Brooklyn aired it's final episode recently. The 17-year old docudrama is the gift that keeps on giving for MTV - which has abandoned anything to do with music at this point.

But evidently The Real World franchise continues to pay the bills which isn't too surprising considering the low production costs (i.e. free labor). I guess you could say "talent" but wouldn't that be a misnomer? In fact, the most notable costs these days are probably alcohol, food, ER visits, alcohol, and hot-tub cleanup, not necessarily in that order.

The next locale for the show is Cancun and I believe is already being shot. That type of locale pretty much abandons all of original intentions of the show. Now it's nothing but beautiful, and slightly unstable, people getting hammered while wearing as little clothing as possible. That's not all bad I guess, but it's a bastardized version of the original show, The Real World: New York which first aired in 1993 before reality TV was even a genre.

I hate to say it, but my college roommates and I couldn't get enough of the show and the marathons MTV would air. It made for good TV, not only because of the newness of the format, but also because of the vast differences in the people invited to take part: the female rapper, the southern balet dancer, the angry black writer, the aspiring male model, the gay actor, etc, etc. Getting an inside look into how these people would get along was riveting. Now it's just a contest in exhibitionism and attention-getting as the entire cast appears to be auditioning for the next installation of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge or whatever drivel MTV is trying to sell it's young audience. I stopped paying attention after the London show and now only get occasional clips while watching The Soup. Now I just feel more like a rubber-necker trying to get a good look at an car accident.

To get back to it's original intent, I would love to see MTV really challenge itself by choose a grittier locale and seeing how cast members survive on nothing but a living wage. So to put the "real" back in The Real World, here's my top 5 wish list for upcoming seasons:

1. Flint, MI - it doesn't get any more real these days than the crappy MI economy
   
2. Newark, NJ - let's see how much partying is done in the PJs
   
3. Mexico City, Mexico - to hell with Cancun, let's put them in the real Mexico
   
4. Bangalore, India - throw them in a call center and let them deal with pissed off customers all day...now that's keeping it real
5. Odessa, TX - enough with the great cities and beach locales, time to visit a place where you can stand on a milk crate and see for miles

So come on MTV, step up and take a chance.