Real World: San Diego Episode 1 Recap

Each week, I’ll be writing up a recap of the most recent episode of Real World: San Diego, MTV’s reality show featuring Middlebury grad Frank Sweeney, ’11. 

The Premise:  For those of you who haven’t  been watching “The Real World” since it first began in 1992 (before the class of 2015 was born), here’s the premise: get a bunch of volatile, opinionated, horny 20-somethings into one house. Add copious amounts of alcohol. Now capture everything on camera, edit it down to the most dramatic, backstabbiest moments, and broadcast it to the world.

The Cast: There’s Frank, emotional, openly bisexual and looking for love; Alexandra, the object of Frank’s drunken affections (regrettably not single) ; Ashley, a 24-year-old model from Connecticut; Nate, a nuclear engineer and self-proclaimed “womanizer”; Priscilla, a 19-year-old who gets left behind when the gang hits the bar; Sam, a lesbian college student who just wants to be “one of the boys”; and Zach, the muscular football player looking to score some “young babes”.

Episode One: “First Impressions” 

For all intents and purposes, this week’s premiere could have been called  ”The Frank Sweeney Show.”

That may be an obvious statement from inside the Midd bubble, where Frank’s first appearance elicited  Tom Cruise couch-jumps and exclamations of, “I know him! I know him!” (followed by the qualifier, “Well, I kind of know him…I saw him once…I think.”)

But even to viewers for whom the “Middlebury” name-drop (it happened) didn’t ring a bell, Frank was the focus of last night’s drama. From his loud floral shirt to his louder bar fight to his eventual drunken meltdown, he garnered the most airtime. The focus on Frank continues on MTV’s website, where today’s Real World poll asked viewers “Will Frank Make it to the End of the Season?” (67% currently say “not likely).

All in all, viewers got just what they tuned in for: awkward introductions, a first night makeout, dumb moments (“Kansas City, wow! There are no beaches there, right??”), and drunk pity parties. Expect more of the same next week, with higher stakes as everyone gets to know each other better.

Reactions: What did you think of the premiere? After 26 seasons of the same dramarama (or even after 1 episode), do you find the “Real World” entertaining, overdone, or, at the very least, an interesting social experiment?