Tag Archives: MTV
March 27, 2013 

The Real World: Portland: TV Review

MTV Real World 28 Portland

MTV’s benchmark series, once of cultural interest, has now taken its alcohol-soaked hookup party to a violent level.

“Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles, here dwells eternal spring, and warm from Hope’s elysian isles, the winds their perfume bring.” That was Oliver Wendell Holmes regarding the mythical Fountain of Youth, from which MTV draws a new group of attractive young folk each year, soaks them in alcohol and then sets the cameras rolling. It might not be exactly what Holmes envisioned, but it’s worked out well for the network. Now in its 28th season,The Real World, the grandfather of the current docu-soap reality movement, continues to churn out familiar content that, in its immortal words, “finds out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.” … READ MORE

January 9, 2013 

Washington Heights: TV Review

On the heels of MTV’s disastrously tacky (and boring) Buckwild, the network has launched another series about teenagers who spend a lot of time drinking, partying and fighting each other, but this time it works. The stars of Washington Heights are all mostly of Dominican background, and while that’s played up as a big part of the series, young adults are young adults.  Race isn’t really much of a factor here. In fact, the group reminds one a lot of another bickering close-knit group of young people: the cast of Laguna Beach … READ MORE

January 3, 2013 

Buckwild: TV Review

The world didn’t end in 2012, but something died within us all when the series Buckwild was conceived.

The controversial new MTV show, the very idea for which already was ripped apart by this publication, follows a slew of wild, drunken West Virginians in their late teens and early 20s. The series takes over Jersey Shore‘s old time slot and has been called a cross between that show and TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

The comparison is incorrect, though: Buckwild is far worse than the sum of the others’ parts. Not only is it another tired portrayal of Southern stereotypes, but it’s also inexcusably poorly executed. The six girls and three boys (trouble is sure to brew with those odds) stumble through and stiffly carry out their force-fed cues. But it doesn’t matter too much, since most of what they say is drowned out by jump cuts and montages set to peppy pop music that almost makes it seem like a dumptruck party would be worth participating in. Almost. Not really. … READ MORE