The Real World New York: Complete First Season (1992)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Series Created by John Murray
Starring Andre Comeau, Rebecca Blasband, Eric Nies, Heather B., Julie Oliver, Kevin Powell, and Norman Korpi

Features:

• Original series pilot
  
• Audio commentary by creator Murray
  
• Cast profiles
  

Released by: Paramount.
Rating: NR, some sexual content
Region: 1
Anamorphic: No, it appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Rent it only if you are a die-hard fan

"This is the true story of seven strangers, picked to live in a house to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real." Back in 1992, MTV thought it would be a neat idea to put a bunch of people in an apartment and force them to live together while they taped it all. Little did they know at the time that they were creating what would become the beginnings of the now legendary (and somewhat infamous) television genre, Reality. Cue ominous thunder.

This most obvious (and most interesting) thing we get from this set is seeing how they've learned from their mistakes from this first season. Watching it, I felt like a Reality TV archaeologist (or anthropologist, or some weird gestalt between the two)--here we have the Cro-Magnon of the Reality TV species, before the massive waves of evolution. It's really raw and it feels like the producers have a lot less control of what went on in the apartment than they do now. I know it seems like all hell breaks loose at some point during the season, but they seemed to be making the whole idea up as they went along with this first season. Even the cast members don't feel like they were prepped as well as the current casts have been.

The DVD is a somewhat weak treatment for this little bit of history. There are the obligatory cast profiles which give you an idea of what stereotypical category each of the cast members fall into, but these do go a little farther. The include information about where and what the cast members are doing now. The commentary with creator Murray is a little weird. Rather than having a running commentary over one of the episodes, like the first one, say, this is just a series of recordings of his thoughts that are audio only. Then there is the Pilot Episode which is not really exciting and looks like it was shot on someone's video camera. Don't watch it unless you either don't get seasick easily or have some Dramamine on hand.

This DVD set is really only good for those people who are true hardcore fans of the show, but I think even those people will have a hard time justifying the purchase of this DVD. They should rent it, but more than likely go no further.