MTV's Real World - Key West: A Review

It's true that the Real World peaked with season three in San Francisco, but for some reason, that is completely unbeknown to me, I continue to watch this program (now in it's 17th season) with a scary religiosity. Most people like to point out that this "Real World" is nothing like the actual real world, but that argument is just stupid. It's a television show for Christ sake's, a television show on MTV. This is not PBS; it's not even TLC, so get over it. For instance, in this season the mayor of Key West (Jimmy Weekly, who looks exactly like a Key West tourist) personally instructs them that they are evacuating the area because a hurricane is bearing down. He physically comes to their house, knocks on the door and tells them the news. This seemed unnecessarily gratuitous, even by Real World standards.

This season is about 1/3 of the way through, so I feel that I have seen enough of the new characters to make sarcastic, fleeting remarks about them. Here goes (in alphabetical order):

Janelle, 23 - San Jose, CA

Normally there is one cast member who is just so boring that the Real World brass and story editors don't even try to make them a part of the "plot". However, in Key West there seems to be two (Jose being the other). I'm totally okay with this, as it seems to give the more charismatic (read: entertaining, or at the very least, watch-able) characters a chance to shine. Thus, there's not much to say about Janelle other than she looks exactly like the genetically mutated cross-breed of Tori Spelling and RW: Las Vegas member Irulan. She also seems to be a bitch and likes to hang out with gay Tyler. I'm sure the producers will, at some point soon, make the obligatory "Janelle episode" to make up for all this. This is when they, out of guilt, make an episode entirely dedicated to getting inside of the head of the neglected cast member(s). These episodes always suck.

John, 23 - Fullerton, CA