We are all up to date now. It’s time to get regular again. This week we do it big. I review 7 shows. That’s right, SEVEN! That includes 3 news shows and the return of another show. That is in addition to the solid duo of The Real World and Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Speaking of that, we have the finale of The Duel. Which man and woman took home all of that money? Find that out along with everything else. We are STACKED, so lets get to it…
SUNDAY
True Life: I’m in an Interfaith Relationship
There are two couples featured in this episode. Both members of each couple have a different religion. Will this divide them and make it harder for them to stay a couple? Or will they be able to compromise and come to agreement on which religion their children should grow up with? Lets find out…
The first couple is Jasmin and Travis. Jasmin is a Jehovah Witness. Travis is a Lutheran Christian. Jehovah Witness is a form of Christianity. They don’t believe that you go heaven when you die. They don’t celebrate holidays, and they don’t believe in crosses. They also have to believe that you have to separate yourself from worldly things. Those are the main differences. Travis and Jasmin spend most of their time fighting about their religions as you might expect.
The second couple is Sasha and Ira. Ira is Jewish. Sasha is a Christian. They are about to have a baby and must decide what religion to raise that baby. Ira is Jewish, which basically means he doesn’t believe that Jesus was the “messiah”. He doesn’t think the “messiah” has come yet. They seem more willing to compromise. Of course, they still fight about their religious differences, though. The weird thing about this is that Sasha celebrates all of the Jewish holidays, since Jesus did, but Ira doesn’t. He only celebrates them because he was brought up that way.
This episode was okay and somewhat interesting. But you basically knew what would happen. People have fought over religion for centuries, so why would these couples not do the same. So the subject was interesting, but the outcome shouldn’t really surprise you.
I’m From Rolling Stone
This new show actually got started two Sundays ago, but I missed it. I did catch the first episode of this show earlier this week, though, and I was there for the second episode back on Sunday. So lets get to it. This show is about 6 young journalists who have been given the chance to write for Rolling Stone magazine. Last summer they all competed against each other to see which one would move on and actually get a job as a contributing editor for Rolling Stone. That’s a prize for sure.
Lets meet the cast/journalists. First, there is a guy named Jann Wenner calling all of the kids and telling them they have to be in New York in two days to start work. Jann is the founder, editor, and publisher of the magazine. First we have Tika. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Next we have Peter. He goes to UC Berkeley in Berkeley, CA, but he is from Australia. He goes to school on a crew scholarship. He misses Jann’s phone call several times, because he was out partying. In San Francisco, CA, we meet Krishtine. She is 23 and is a hip-hop journalist. She is an editor for Ruckus Magazine. Next we go to Los Angeles, CA. Colin is from Oregon but goes to USC. He is 19 and is an intern at Filter magazine. We then meet Krystal, who is from California and is 24 years old. She is award-winning poet. Finally, we have Russell from San Francisco, CA. He is 25 and is a high-school dropout. He began writing, while attending juvenile hall.
Everyone gets their first assignment, which is to write 500-1000 words about the music culture in their hometowns. Russell quickly interviews local rappers he seems to know. They talk about the “Hyphie” movement on the West Coast. Russell looks like a dark-haired Ryan Seacrest. Tika is poor and has faced lots of struggles apparently. She is from Buffalo, so she does her story on the music there. She talks to a local DJ. Not only does Peter not have that much writing experience, he also parties a lot. That’s a good combination. Krishtine says goodbye to her mom and hopes to make both of their lives better with this job. She then says bye to her friends. Krystal lost her mom not too long ago. she has a boyfriend that looks like that guy from Korn. They have their tearful goodbye.
Finally, all of the writers arrive in New York City. EVeryone is stressing over this first assignment. They all have their own apartment all set up for them, though, so that’s sweet. Eventually they all meet up and meet Joe Levy, who is the executive editor of the magazine. He tells them that they will be watching them closely. One of them will become an editor for the magazine for a year at the end of the summer. Joe talks to each writer about their first drafts of their first assignment. He pretty much rips into everyone’s work EXCEPT Russell, which surprises me a little. But then again, he doesn’t really do anything so he has time to write.
So there we go. The first episode is done and the second episode picks up where we left off last time. Colin, Russell, and Krishtine all get their first assignments for rollingstone.com. They all face some short deadlines.
Colin goes to Toronto, Canada. Colin is worried that he is not ready for all of this yet. He interviews an indie band named We Are Scientists. They don’t take the interview that serious and Colin seems a little nervous. He has to review their concert as well.
Krishtine goes to New York City. She interviews indie rapper, El-P. Krishtine is not that good of an interviewer, in my opinion. She doesn’t really get much from El-P from what I saw. She does have to review his music, though.
Russell goes to Chicago. He has to talk with Lupe Fiasco and Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan. Russell thinks he is the best writer out there as he has the most experience. He has no problem acting unusual to get himself noticed. That includes jumping into a trashcan as part of Lupe’s “Feats of Strength and Ability” or something like that. Russell is a good interviewer, but he makes the mistake of not taking the death of O.D.B., Ghostface’s best friend, seriously.
In the end, Krishtine has to get a second interview from El-P because she missed a lot of information. Russell’s article seems good to go. Colin is okay as well. In addition to their first assignments, they also get to meet Nelly Furtado who is having lunch with the Rolling Stone crew. Everyone acts like total fans, as you might expect. Colin’s article is the first one to get posted live on rollingstone.com. Russell’s blog gets posted the next day and he’s working on a feature for Lupe for the magazine. Krishtine’s article never gets published, which is no surprise to me.
Overall, this is an interesting show since it involves writing and how hard it takes to get a job like this. I think Russell or Colin are the frontrunners to become the winning editor. But I haven’t seen Tika, Peter, or Krystal in action yet. So we will probably see that next week. Another fresh subject to explore on MTV, though.
MONDAY
The Hills
We are back for a second season of the spin-off show of Laguna Beach. This show stars my favorite Laguna girl Lauren Conrad a.k.a. LC. She has moved to Los Angeles and gotten a job at Teen Vogue. She has a new roommate named Heidi and new friends. But last season she still had the same old boyfriend issues with Jason. You may remember that we ended on a cliffhanger last season. Lauren could have gone to Paris for Teen Vogue for the summer. But she decided to stay home and get a beach house with Jason. I was yelling at the TV and saying “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Would it pay off? I know the answer to that already, but I will let Lauren tell you.
This season picks up with Lauren doing a voice-over on what happened during the summer. She and Jason continued to fight during the summer. Her friend, and fellow intern, Whitney, went to Paris instead of her. Was it worth it? Hell no as Lauren tells us that her and Jason broke up soon afterwards. I told you so! We start off with Lauren dropping off some of Jason’s things at his house. Lauren gets all emotional here. Jason wants to be her friend still, but Lauren says that can’t happen. She wants to be normal with him, but she can’t because it’s him. I’ve been there before and it’s not easy. It’s hard not seeing him, but it’s harder to see him. Believe me, Lauren is better of without him. Of course, that doesn’t stop her from crying about to Heidi. She was crying when she was with him and now she is crying because he’s not here. The thing is that the crying without him will stop A LOT sooner than the crying while with him.
Lauren has other problems. She goes back to work and she has to face her boss and Whitney. Whitney tells her how amazing Paris was. Then, they go to talk to their boss, Linda, and she asks how their summer went. Lauren has this awesome look on her face the whole time Whitney is telling Linda about Paris. It’s like “I’m jealous, and I hate you for rubbing it in”. That kind of look. Linda then tells Lauren that she will always be remembered as “the girl that didn’t go to Paris”. That one has to hurt! Especially come from her boss, and she wasn’t joking either. Then, Linda rubs it in even more by asking about her summer with Jason. That didn’t work out too well. She is regretting that decision now, but you have to make mistakes to learn some things. Hopefully, Lauren has learned something.
Heidi has her own problems. She has a new boyfriend now. His name is Spencer. He seems nice and all, but the problem is that he is seeing Audrina at the same time. Heidi and Audrina used to be friends last season. But something happened over the summer and now they are not. It doesn’t help that Spencer comes with Audrina to the clubs that Heidi is working out. She got promoted to work the doors at this new club for Boltman Productions. That’s a sweet job, but it doesn’t help to see your “boyfriend” with another girl. Spencer is just full of lies in this episode. He lies about hanging out with Audrina to Heidi. The very next scene we see them together and Spencer later takes Audrina to the same restaurant that he took Heidi to the previous night. Spencer is a “playa” and a not a very good one at that.
Meanwhile, Lauren is back to checking out other guys in her cute little way at the same club. After the drama at the club, Audrina tells her friend that Spencer likes her, but she doesn’t like him. She doesn’t want Spencer. To make matters worse, we close things with Heidi going to the store and buying a test. A test that will see if she is pregnant or not. So you know what that means. Heidi may soon have “baby daddy drama”. That’s ALWAYS fun! This season is already better minus Jason, so things are looking up.
DanceLife
This show is about 6 young dancers who hope to follow the path that Jennifer Lopez took. She was a dancer to start her career. She then went on to do music and movies. But dancing is where she got her start. J-Lo created this show with the tag line..”It’s a tough life, but it’s a beautiful life if you love doing it. It’s a dancer’s life”. So this show hopes to take you behind-the-scenes of the world of dance.
Lets look at the dancers that are featured on this show. We have 3 different pairs of dancers. Blake and Staci have been successful dancers already landing some big jobs. They hope to take it another level like J-Lo, though. Kenny and Celestina have had some success, but they hope to find that one good job to launch their careers into another level. Celestina already had one big break by landing in a Prince video. But this job is tough and it can end in a heartbeat. Finally, we have Jersey and Nolan who have not gotten their “big break”. They struggle to pay the bills until then.
In this first episode, all 6 dancers get the call to come audition for Jennifer Lopez in New York City and her tour perhaps. Everyone makes it except for Jersey. She has car problems and can’t make it to the audition. She continues to struggle to pay the bills. The other 5 make to the auditions and they dance their hearts out. J-Lo is with her husband, Marc Anthony, of course. Blake is known for his gymastic moves as he flips around and stuff. Kenny has the smooth move of dancing and putting his picture up on J-Lo’s desk, all in one motion. Staci apparently worked in one of Jennifer Lopez’s videos before. After the first round, Nolan doesn’t make the cut. He is disappointed, but he takes out his frustration on Blake. He talks smack about him to Kenny. No one seems to like Blake. We would find out why later.
Nolan works at a clothing store and Blake and his friend come in and totally diss him. Blake doesn’t really say anything to him and he seems like a real jerk. Jersey seem really nice and sweet, though. She just has to try harder than anyone else to make it. Her mom always wants her to come back home. That doesn’t help either. Kenny appears to be dating one of the Pussycat Dolls. In the end, J-Lo picks Kenny over Blake and gets that job. Everyone else is left looking for other auditions.
I don’t know how the format of the show will go. I know Jennifer Lopez is involved, but it seems that there will be other auditions and other music stars involved. The show seems interesting, though, if they focus on the dancing more than the drama away from the dance floor. We’ll see, though.
WEDNESDAY
The Real World: Denver
The gang is back from their outdoors adventures. That means the drama picks right back up. Stephen has a girlfriend named Mercii back home, but that doesn’t stop him from asking these girls back to their house. Alex and Stephen ask them to come back at least. Jenn tries to talk sense into Stephen, since he asked her too, but of course he is not listening to her.
Meanwhile, Brooke and Davis are flirting. Davis jokes around and says sexual things to Brooke, which Brooke returns. Brooke says she is going to have sex with Davis. They have this odd conversation about Davis having sex with girls and liking it, BUT still Davis is gay. I never have heard of that before, so Davis is unique. Apparently Brooke and Davis are in the bed rolling around and Davis does something that he thought Brooke wanted, but Brooke says she doesn’t. She is just sexual frustrated. But Tyrie calls her a “tease” and she agrees. HA!
More drama comes when Jenn is drinking and she starts talking smack to Stephen about him bringing home these girls and making out with him, but yet he still thinks he is being faithful with Mercii, since it doesn’t mean anything. Stephen finally can’t take it anymore and yells back at her. Alex mentions to Stephen that he should “kill Jenn where it hurts” and get back at her. Alex knows that Jenn can get really mean when she drinks, so he suggests giving her a taste of her own medicine. That’s fine, but Alex says something about Jenn’s dad, which is a touchy subject. The thing about this is that Davis hears Alex tell Stephen this and then Davis goes off and tells Jenn that. Is he stupid?! So Jenn comes down and yells at Alex and gets upset. Alex is upset not because Jenn is upset, but because she took things the wrong way and it will take forever to get her to trust him again.
In the end, Jenn and Alex do make up. Stephen feels bad for his party. But really Davis and Jenn are to blame. Actually, all four are to blame. Stephen shouldn’t say he is going to be faithful to his girlfriend and then make out with other girls. Then again, Jenn can diss out the pain but she can’t take it back. Alex probably shouldn’t have said what he said, but the point is Alex DID NOT say it to Jenn. He wasn’t going to say it to her. So BOO to Davis for telling Jenn when he had to know she would react that way. In the end, Jenn and Stephen look the worse in this situation. Jenn has gotten drunk and gotten mean too many times to count and it’s really getting old.
Maui Fever
Welcome to Hawaii. This isn’t Laguna Beach, California, but it’s close. Lets meet the cast. We have Cheyne, Jesse, Corbin, and Sean. They are all friends and they are all surfers. In addition to them, we also have Cheyne’s roommate, Anthony. He has an ex-girlfriend named Chaunte. One last girl rounds out the cast. That would be Anna. She is friends with Chaunte and happens to be Cheyne’s ex-girlfriend as well.
Basically, the premise behind this show is to see surfers hang out and party. Cheyne makes it clear from the start that they try hit on as many tourist girls as they can. Corbin hits the beach, Jesse hits the pool, Sean works the tables as a waitor and tells the other guys where the chicks. Cheyne is the ring leader and gives the orders. His goal now is to get Anthony out of his depression over Chaunte. Chaunte and Anna just want to party and have fun without a relationship.
This doesn’t last long. Chaunte and Anthony meet up to talk. Anthony wants to get back together. Chaunte doesn’t. She wants to be “friends”. Anthony says she just says that so she can be free to do whatever. But yet she still calls him and hangs out with him and they still act like a couple. Chaunte insists on “just friends” and Anthony gets up and leaves.
Meanwhile, Cheyne and Anna talk as well. They seem to want to get back together as well. Corbin meet a tourist chick named Katie. He hooks up with her. He and Jesse also scam on some chicks at the beach shower. Corbin then has the problem of getting Katie to leave. That wouldn’t be good for his image, if he had a girlfriend around.
Later, there is a party at Corbin’s house. Random girls dance on Anthony and seem to be into him. In walks in Chaunte and she seems pissed for some reason. So basically she is the type of girl that wants to be single, but gets mad when her ex-boyfriend is flirting with other girls. She can flirt as much as she wants, but not him. I hate those types of girls. If you are getting jealous of this, admit that you still like him and want to be with him. Stop playing these games. Anyways to confuse things even more, we end this episode with Chaunte and Anthony talking some more and they end up kissing and making up and out, I suppose. So are they back together? Seems like it, but this is Maui Fever baby!
First thoughts on this show. It’s interesting. In another life, I want to be a surfer so I’m partial to that. They didn’t actually show these guys surfing, though. It’s main focus is the random “hooking up” with girls for the guys and relationships between the “core four”. So basically this is Laguna Beach in Maui, Hawaii. I actually like the “hooking up with tourists” stuff. That’s interesting to me. It doesn’t hurt that Corbin’s brain seems to be fried from the sun. Whoa, I’m a surfer dude! Anyways this should be fun.
THURSDAY
Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel
It’s time for the finale. We are down to two men and two women. Brad vs. Wes and Jodi vs. Svetlana. This final challenge is going to be the most grueling and toughest one yet. Everyone wants to win the money for various reasons, but who will take home $150,000 each?
The final challenge is called The Rio Deal. They will be running through a forest. There are two flags that they must get at the end to win. But first they have the chance to get a “two minute headstart” over their opponent. To do that, they have to kick soccer balls into a net. Whoever gets the most in over their opponent will get to start the race two minutes before the other.
Svetlana only gets one ball into the net over Jodi. Jodi goes and she kicks in two balls, which means she gets the headstart. That’s bad fro Svetlana since Jodi is a great runner. Brad goes first for the guys. Wes has played soccer before and Brad hasn’t. But Brad does kick in one ball. Wes is over there kicking the ball around and feels confident. He kicks the first two balls in and gets the headstart. Wes doesn’t know how well that will help him, though.
The real part of the race begins and basically they have to run up mountains to get these blocks. Each block is a part of a final puzzle. They have to run and get each block and then back down the mountain to deliver the pieces. So yes, they have to run up and down mountains just so they can solve a puzzle and then run some more to the finish line. The cubes they have to carry aren’t small either, which doesn’t help.
The next part of the race comes with the “Teetor-Totter”. They have to put rocks on one end of a beam and they have to balance themselves for five seconds on this thing. That’s the turning point as Wes finishes that first. Jodi is still putting the puzzle together, but no problem as Svetlana is moving along slowly.
Jodi is still blowing away Svetlana and she easily crosses the finish line first. She wins the money for the girls. Brad and Wes are battling, though. Brad races past Wes at one point, but they both still have to find the flag first. In the end, Wes gets there first and wins the money! Brad is mad that it all came down to the soccer shootout and the headstart. That’s not entirely true as he did make up that time difference. Jodi was just too good for Svetlana. She is happy that she made it this far, though.
We finish things off by taking look at everyone that was eliminated before them and all of the drama that went down on this show as well. The fighting and all of that. See you next challenge!
And that ends the 26th volume of the “MTV Mix”! If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or feedback of any kind..send them my way!!
I’ll see you next time when we mix things up a bit!
