Don't laugh. Best show on TV this season? The Real World.
I know most of you wrote it off years ago. It's maddening sometimes. The casting, in particular. This insane lust for villains. Yes, of course a great villain makes a reality show more interesting in a way--definitely makes it more explosive--but also can make it incredibly annoying. And pointless. I don't care how a bunch of immature brats react to one another. So what? And the frustration of watching three or four nice ones deal with a total asshole or two can be too frustrating for words.
Of course conflict is crucial to any great drama, but there are other ways to find it.
I think they gradually began to learn that. Some of the most interesting characters in recent years have been the ones inflicting most of the pain on themselves. The really smart woman in Paris, comes to mind. Man, was she conflicted. She loved to play and get drunk, and she desperately wanted to get close to Ace, it was palpable the way she wanted to kiss him. But she had this image of herself as The Good Girl, and she defined that goodness in ways completely contradictory to her character. What she didn't get was she was a good girl. One of the kindest, most loyal, caring people in the world. How did she convince herself kissing Ace on camera would make her bad?
She was not a complete success. She held back too much, in the end. We saw the pain, we saw how it tore her apart inside--this crucial moment in her life playing out; deciding who she was, how she was going to live her life--though she never really worked through it during the run of the show. But there was tremendous potential there, and a lot of great drama watching the first act of her coming of age.
More successful that season was the wild Boston boy with the ridiculous hair, who graciously covered it up much of the time with the skullcap. (I never remember these peoples' names.) Man, that boy had problems. But he was not a problem. He was not a bad person. Quite the contrary, he had an incredible heart. He wanted so desperately to do the right thing. He just didn't know how.
Now that is an interesting character. The stuff of great tragedy. After so many seasons of total jerks and assholes, stirring up trouble just because they were selfish two-year-olds or got off on putting other people down or making them miserable, finally they found someone wrecking having in the house who really had no intention of causing trouble. Who felt miserable when he discovered his impact, just didn't know how to fix it. He just wasn't house broken.
He wanted so badly for those people to like him but he pushed them all away instead.
I don't know if he was the first Real World character ever to fit that mold--most of the characters have been eminently forgettable, plus I can only stomach the show about every other season--but the show has seen a sudden explosion of them.
This season, the house is just packed with them.
Karamo was an obvious from the start. Almost a cliche of a walking time bomb, but a variety we haven't seen much of on TV: he starts out as the typical Angry Young Black Man, make him more interesting by finding one who's bright, self-aware and reflective about the struggle he's going through, yet unable to control it, and then add an extra twist. Tough, slightly hardass, walks and talks and acts like a jock, but he happens to be attracted to guys. Black and gay. And furious at the world for both strikes. But smart enough not to lash out in all the obvious ways every time. And bright enough to see the futility of all the walls he had erected when his roommates called him on them.
And did they. And God, who would have expected the hero this season to be the southern fratboy semi-pro football player? In a house surrounded by tragically-flawed sweethearts, MJ has repeatedly stepped in as camp counselor. Ten years ago, Real World producers would have thought they needed somebody to fan the flames, but what has really proved interesting is someone to help these ravaged souls confront their problems. MJ has consistently gotten these people to open up and face their problems. None of them have overcome them in such a short time, but several have recognized them, come to grips with the ugly reality, spoken to the roommates they've hurt in the process candidly and at least made a start on a new course in life.
The most tragic of all has turned out to be Landon. That boy was my favorite from the start. That infectious grin, you could just see the mischievous little twelve-year-old inside of him, right beside one of the nicest people you might run into in a lifetime. That boy has got a heart of gold.
But man. When he gets drunk. Monster.
It broke my heart when he got so belligerent with Vonda one of the first few weeks that she was actually too afraid to date him. Tragic, because they were so obviously taken by one another. And they each had something the other desperately needed. God, we'll get to Vonda. But what Landon did this week. Pulling a kitchen knife out--three, eventually--and waving them madly and menacingly toward Mel's tattoo buddies . . . So far over the line I'm at a loss to describe it. He should have been kicked off the show for that. He's bound straight for prison and/or hell if he keeps waving big knives around at biker boys when he's drunk.
That kid just breaks my heart. The way only an exceptional soul can. I have no doubt he has a prime seat in heaven waiting for him. The guy just exudes sweetness and joy. I believe he would do anything to help someone. But he can't seem to save himself if his life depended on it, and it clearly does. If those biker boys had not been surrounded by cameras documenting their every move, he might easily be dead this very minute. Or at least brutally disfigured.
At least he has recognized, finally, just how badly he has a drinking problem. I'm pretty skeptical about his five-drinks-per-night cap, but who knows. Sometimes I wonder about the AA method. I know it helps a great number of people, but I also wonder about all the men and women who can't or won't take something that extreme, so they end up plunging back in. If he can do it in moderation and enjoy it without all the outbursts, it's probably his best shot at success.
More importantly, he keyed right into the other half of the problem. It's not just the drinking he's struggling with. It's the niceness. Misdirected niceness. He wants so badly to be loved that he can't bring himself to call anyone on any of the crap that bugs him. He keeps the smile pasted on all day, and once the drinking starts, all that anger he's been building up for 12 hours just spills out.
I'm not saying the smile is fake--there's no doubt that that's one deliriously happy boy. He's just one of those gleeful, bubbly people, full of energy and life who enjoys brightening up every room he walks into. It's when the cloud drifts in and he refuses to admit it. The smile starts out real, but it stays there even when somebody bugs the crap out of him. He brushes it off, refuses to let it bother him, but it does bother him. Not just then, but later, watch out.
I've been that guy. Worse, I've dated him. My ex, my God. It wasn't a daily explosion with him, he let it build up for a month at a time, and then it was freaking ugly. And always the alcohol turning the key to set all that anger free.
Yes, it's a drinking problem, but it's even more a candor problem. And I was mildly surprised to see him diagnose both halves of his condition so effortlessly, so candidly and so sincerely.
OK, I wanted to talk about Vonda and (what is boobjob girl's name), but I'm kinda winded. Two more hearts of gold with one fatal flaw that will destroy their entire life if they don't learn to overcome it. Both concerning men, and ultimately far more challenging than the boys' problems.
Leaving just two fairly innocuous, mildly annoying, but graciously invisible characters this season.
Casting two gayguys in the same season was an interesting choice--especially throwing them in the house with two Abercrombie jocks--but none of that really played out. They all got along fine after a few early hurdles, and as fascinating as Karamo has been, the preening little queen Willie is just vacuous. Not so bright, to start with. And more shallow than dumb. All he wants in life is to be fabulous, and as far as he knows, he has achieved that, so what is there to watch?
The potentially interesting show on that boy would come ten or twenty years from now, when he realizes how empty and pointless his life is, if he hasn't figured out a new course. Hard to know exactly what they thought they were adding with this guy. I guess he's there more to provoke drama than be live out any of his own, but Landon seems comfortable around gays, and MJ's fear of homos was outweighed by a stronger instinct to treat everybody like a human being, and his powerful sense of loyalty which caused him to see anyone he lived with as a friend to be protected no matter what their sexual proclivities.
And then we have Mel. Clearly cast as the bitch, but she's such a quiet, passive aggressive bitch that everyone tends to roll their eyes and ignore her more than confront her. She did eventually bring Landon's anger to a head, so she served her purpose nicely: setting off the innately interesting conflicts of the other characters, and allowing the camera to focus in on them.
The producers have also grown smart enough to recognize this. Willie and especially Mel have been nearly invisible this season. All the main plotlines have revolved around the four wonderfully flawed characters, and the surprising voice of sanity in the middle.
It's been glorious.
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
