TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052592/05259932.000

Text File | 1992-09-10 | 3.6 KB | 81 lines

                                                                                REVIEWS, Page 71

TELEVISION

Tales of the SoHo Seven


BY RICHARD ZOGLIN

    SHOW: The Real World
    TIME: Beginning May 21, 10 P.M. EDT, MTV

    THE BOTTOM LINE: Good idea, middling execution, in this
'90s update of An American Family.


    Julie and Eric are starting to have, like, a thing for
each other. Not a romance exactly; sort of a badgering
flirtation. She lets him eat off her plate of spaghetti. He goes
to her hip-hop dance class. When Becky, one of five other
roommates, wants to fix Julie up with a blind date, Eric is
dismayed. "He gave me this look," says Becky. "I thought fire
was going to shoot out of his eyes."

    Then there's the strawberries incident. Eric complains at
the breakfast table that Julie crept into his bed at 6:30 one
morning and asked if he wanted to go out for strawberries and
pancakes. She protests: She didn't say anything about pancakes,
and anyway it was an innocent gesture. "He makes it sound like
I just climbed all into bed with him and lay there a while and
said, `Let's go get strawberries,'" she says later. "Wrongola!"

    Just a slice of life from the real world. Make that The
Real World, MTV's new 13-week documentary series that puts a
'90s spin on An American Family, PBS's 1973 cinema-verite
chronicle of the troubled Loud family. The producers selected
seven young New Yorkers (one a transplant from Alabama) ranging
in age from 19 to 25, put them together in a furnished loft in
SoHo and set the cameras rolling for three months. The idea was
to keep a video diary of their interactions, altercations and
(possibly) romantic entanglements -- to see, as the show puts
it, "what happens when people stop being polite and start
getting real."

    Great idea, middling execution. The group is composed
entirely of aspiring artistes: a writer, a rap singer, a dancer,
a model and so forth (not a 9-to-5 drudge in the house). The
half-hour episodes are assembled with quick-cutting flash by
producers Mary Ellis Bunim and Jon Murray. Few scenes last
longer than a minute, the sound track vibrates with rock music,
and the camera is always moving or tilted rakishly. MTV has
apparently outlawed the 90 degrees angle.

    All this rock-video frenzy prevents us from getting much
of a sustained look at how the characters relate to one
another. The camera spends too much time outside the loft --
watching Julie navigate the subway on her way to a dance class,
or Heather at a rap recording session. The show seems less
interested in its rats-in-a-cage sociological experiment than
in fashioning a Fame-like documentary on Making It in New York.
The glimpses we do get of group interaction are -- in the first
three episodes, at least -- pretty paltry. Becky has promised
Andre that she will go see his rock band perform, but she is too
tired after attending an art show with Norman. Heather, out with
Julie walking Norman's Great Dane, is angry when the dog knocks
her to the pavement. "I wanted to kill Julie, the dog, Norman,"
she says later. "I woulda just blown up the whole house, the way
I felt that day."

    The Real World may improve as the subjects get used to the
camera and fed up with one another. With a little more psychic
turmoil, the show might even become a hit. Imagine the
possibilities: young viewers turn off Beverly Hills, 90210 for
Tales of the SoHo Seven. The gang gets back together for a
sequel. There's a reunion after seven years, then 14, then 21
. . . Come on, Julie, go for those strawberries.