Wasted days, wasted nights on 'Real World'
June 29, 2004
BY PHIL ROSENTHAL TELEVISION CRITIC Advertisement


When a union dispute temporarily imperiled shooting the next season of MTV's "The Real World" in Philadelphia, a friend in the City of Brotherly Shove called to ask if it would be any great loss should producers follow through on their threat to pull up stakes.

The comparison I made was to the SARS virus, I think, something about how you're lucky if you can stop the threat at the airport.

Whatever criteria the folks at MTV and Bunim-Murray Productions are using to select casts, good citizenship isn't among them. "The Real World" gives communities the kind of neighbors for which fences were invented.

Never has this been more true than in "The Real World: San Diego," which closes out its boozed-up run at 9 tonight.

A promised highlight is that one of the resident louts, Robin Hibbard, is to go before a judge to answer misdemeanor battery charges stemming from just one of the drunken escapades the show delights in presenting, if not precipitating, for our entertainment.

Perhaps the point of showing the real-life ramifications for the irresponsible behavior the series has showcased and celebrated for a dozen years is to distract from the fact that no mention will be made of the rape that may have occurred in the "Real World: San Diego" house as the series was being taped last year.

According to the Web site The Smoking Gun, which has posted a copy of the police search warrant application online, a woman who wasn't in the cast alleged she was drugged and sexually assaulted by a man she met in a bar. (The alleged assailant, also not in the cast, is said to be a pal of housemate Randy Barry.) Cast member Jamie Chung and producer Kevin Lee were interviewed as potential witnesses.

This is too serious, apparently, for MTV and Bunim-Murray. Too real for "The Real World."

This is a show that loves to create drama out of events that aren't necessarily compelling -- like when Hibbard and Cameran Eubanks ditched work on a boat by diving into the water -- but here it is choosing to steer clear when something truly interesting happens.

It's not yet known exactly how Hibbard's liquored-up attack will be dealt with tonight. (The finale was not sent to critics.) But a tip to just how serious MTV actually considers Hibbard's arrest for punching and scratching a marine is on its official "Real World" Web site, under the link "The Jailbirds," which has photos of her mugging in front of a cop car with housemate Brad Fiorenza, who was busted for public intoxication.

Fiorenza, of course, did his Orland Park hometown proud right from the very first episode when he discussed his most manly of attributes at length and woke up his girlfriend back home to confirm his tale of the tape. Yeah. That's what you do when you're sober.

Even for "The Real World," there was a lot of drinking on this edition. Never mind that some of the housemates weren't yet 21.

One came to suspect that the reason the show referred to its cast on a first-name-only basis this time was less out of tradition than perhaps so that many of them would have an easier transition into the "My name is ..." introductions at future 12-step meetings.

Frankie Abernathy, probably the most troubled of all the San Diego cast members, ran away in mid-production and was replaced by Charlie Dordevich. Curiously, she ran away because she considered herself too punk for the show.

Abernathy brought something new, dysfunctionally speaking, to "The Real World." She was a cutter. She mutilated herself in an earlier episode. With a knife.

Cutting is so bad that the producers brought in Dr. Drew Pinsky ("Loveline") to give a disclaimer at the beginning and end of the episode and sent Abernathy to a mental health therapist.

But where were the disclaimers and therapist when Abernathy was smoking despite suffering from cystic fibrosis? Where were the warnings about her drunken stupors, her blackouts and when she passed out while on the phone?

With tens of thousands of would-be camera-hogs applying to be on "The Real World," you would think Bunim-Murray, the same outfit inflicting Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on civilians in Fox's "The Simple Life," could find some outgoing people who aren't so self-destructive.

Maybe Philadelphia should consider a quarantine for next season.

Originally posted by Mopower
Another reason why this was one of my favs was that there was no racial BS going on.

Originally posted by Steam
I'm still trying to figure out why they let Charlie in on the celebration on the last night. He was there, what, five days?

Originally posted by Gil Jawetz
Except for that time that Robin used the N word and Jac got super upset.

He seems like one of the more well balanced cast members on any season, although he is a little too preoccupied with his male roommates' sexual goings-on.

"The Real World: San Diego" wrapped up last night, a mediocre end to a disappointing season. I'm not sure what went wrong here: Too much Frankie, not enough Jacqueese, not enough drama. I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old. The show is just so damned predictable now: Jacqueese putting on the life jacket in Episode 2, the chick with the big breasts turning out to be a chain-smoking lunatic, the way they ended things with Brad and Cameran as the last two people in the house . . . you could see everything coming from a mile away. Somebody could spend an hour in Cypress Hill's dressing room smoking the hydro pot that they give to cancer patients, come out, watch one of these "San Diego" episodes and still be able to predict everything that's about to happen.

From an Unintentional Comedy standpoint, there were some quality moments: Frankie getting on the plane home dressed as a punk-rock Juliet for Halloween (imagine sitting next to that freak in Row 22?); Frankie claiming she was too "punk-rock for this house"; Frankie's overwhelmed little sister, who was making the "My Sister is An Absolute Lunatic" Face for two straight episodes; Robin acting like every annoying drunk chick you ever hated; the new roommate not showing up for their boat job because he was tired of working after a good three days; Randy's classic quote in Greece about having his feelings hurt because Frankie said he was an alcoholic (I wish I could remember it -- send it to me if you remember the exact wording); and Jacqueese breaking Snoop's record for "Most times uttering the phrase 'You know what I'm sayin?'" during the episode where his Mom visited.

I guess I was left with three questions:

1. Was Jacqueese gay? A reader e-mailed me that theory last month and it changed the way I watched the show. Why didn't he make a move on anyone all season? Why did he dress the way he did? Was he supposed to come out . . . then he chickened out? Was he asexual? Was he just an unusual guy? I need answers.

2. Why didn't anyone make a move on the smoking-hot Asian chick? She could have been one of the four-or-five best-looking roommates in the history of the show . . . and other than Jacqueese, she was the only redeemable character in the house. So what the hell happened there? Did she have B.O. or something? Guys weren't even hitting on her in bars -- it was like she was a high school football coach's daughter and everyone in San Diego was on the football team. Totally confusing.

3. What happened with the alleged rape? Whose friends were involved? What was the fallout? How could they not even allude to this stuff? Everyone knows that something happened . . . so they pretend nothing happened? Pretty lame. Especially for a show that prides itself on "showing everything," even Ruthie driving drunk in Hawaii, when she could have killed somebody.

Originally posted by raven56706
for the record.... jamie is still ugly to me.... anything smoking is the dubie i would smoke before i bang her....

Originally posted by B.A.
I am usually not into girls of Asian descent, but I thought Jamie was sexy as hell.

Originally posted by El Scorcho
The Jacquese being gay thing and Jamie not getting hit on at all are really good points.