“It’s like the first day of school for me again. You give me butterflies in my stomach and shit like that.”
– New York reveals her softer side.
Flavor Flav, who was the most unlikely recipient of a (reality TV) career resurrection, well, ever, should have seen it coming. Among the many valuable life lessons taught by his own “reality” show, Flavor of Love, the most valuable was that fame is fleeting and VH1 can create a new star out of any batshit-crazy wannabe-celebrity if the show is a big enough trainwreck. And no one besides Flav himself is a bigger trainwreck than the breakout star of his first two seasons, Tiffany “New York” Pollard.
A character so obnoxious that even Flavor Flav thought she was too over the top for him, New York lost in the finals of both seasons of Flav’s quest for love, but when Flav tried to play hardball with VH1 she suddenly found herself as the new star of the show. And what a bargain she proved to be, as she obviously works cheap and the show, I Love New York, instantly became the highest-rated in VH1 history.
Let me tell you right now, if you’re looking for reality in your reality TV, this ain’t it. Anyone who doesn’t realize that this is almost totally scripted, right down to the confessionals, is so naive that they might want to try out for the inevitable season 3 or the even more inevitable spin-off show with Chance. Yeah, they’re doing that one, too. It’s hilarious that New York constantly proclaims that she wants to make sure that everyone is there “for her,” because clearly everyone involved as a contestant is either an actor or a rapper looking for exposure. And they’re pretty obvious about it.
The format of the show follows the winning Flav formula perfectly: New York gets to live in the same house, joined by her mother and an actor named Chamo who acts as advisor, and she weeds through 20 potential suitors with a variety of lowbrow tests of love to see who’s “feeling her” the most. With her fake eyelashes and faker hair and a constant supply of Red Bull and cigarettes, truly New York makes the heart go pitter-patter.
But really, the point of the show isn’t to find true love for her and never was. The point is for VH1 to cast the craziest of the crazy and find someone who they can spin off when New York tries to ask for too much money, and this show creates several new “stars”:
– Tango, the “winner” (look, does anyone CARE who wins or loses this thing?), who later turned out to be a rapper that was there to promote his CD. Alternating between love-lorn nice guy and angry black man with a baseball cap precariously perched on the side of his head, Tango was the only one to proclaim his love from the start and maintain that stance through the entire show. Sadly, New York dissed his mama and things didn’t work out. No, really.
– Chance, the bad boy thug who New York wanted from the start and who was hated by her mother. Clearly the villain of the show, Chance was written like he was New Jack on a dating show and the results were pretty much what you’d expect. New York, totally smitten with him because he wore his pants low and that’s apparently very “thug,” overlooked behavior that would get you put in jail in most civilized reality shows. Chance is also a rapper with a CD to promote, but he was actually there for New York, just like everyone else.
– Real, Chance’s brother and his opposite number, the sensitive guy who the ladies just don’t understand. He had really nice hair, and other than that I don’t see how he made it as far as he did.
– The true breakout star of the show, however, is Mr. Boston, a nerdy white accountant who proved to have charisma and enough balls to pick fights with Chance on a regular basis. Their “feud,” which leads up to a boxing match where the winner was pretty obvious, was one of the highlights of the season despite the outwardly one-sided nature of it all. A spin-off with Boston (who is currently dating Pumkin from Flavor of Love) and Tango is reportedly in development.
– 12 Pack, a roided idiot who is probably gay and doesn’t see what’s so wrong about dancing in strip clubs FOR men and giving them lapdances. He is joined by his little buddy Heat, and the two of them are currently on tour as The Party Boys. You can’t make this stuff up. 12 Pack also gets one of the best lines of the show upon his departure, noting “My ex-girlfriend looked pretty good today, I think I’ll go home and bang the shit out of her” just minutes after declaring his undying love to New York.
More or less, the show works as a spoof of dating reality because we know what we’re watching is make believe and the “contestants” seem to think that it’s a perfectly good way to enhance their resume, so really I don’t think anyone involved is getting hurt here. It would be one thing if 20 actual human beings were vying for the affections of the character called New York, but there’s no danger of real emotion on this show. It’s so cynical about the whole process that it wouldn’t shock me if they fired Tiffany and replaced her with another actress for the third season.
The DVD is uncensored, which is to say they censor one word in particular (and with a house full of black people, I think you can guess which one) and leave the rest untouched. And much like the first two seasons of Flavor of Love, the show is VERY vulgar, especially the reunion episode, which degenerates into bad Jerry Springer antics very quickly. But really, anyone who watches this for the serious emotional nature of it is being stupider than the people on the show. Clearly everyone involved is an actor hamming it up for their resume and the producers are pulling all the strings. That being said, I don’t think the show works as well as Flav’s shows did. I lost interest once Mr. Boston was eliminated, because the Tango v. Stallionaires battle just wasn’t that interesting and Chance the wounded puppy dog isn’t a compelling heel character. Really, the producers needed to rig things so that the far more entertaining (i.e., batshit crazy) contenders like Pootie or Romance made it closer to the end so that their total mental breakdown would make for more dramatic TV. Pootie sitting in the diner with Sister Patterson, looking like he was about to jump up and strangle a random customer, was by far the most compelling moment in the series.
Extras are sparse. That is to say, nonexistent. You get all 12 episodes from the first season of the show, including the clip show and the reunion, but nothing for extras outside of ads for Flavor of Love on DVD. Ultimately if you’re into trash TV and you’ve never seen that show before, I’d pick it up before moving into this one. New York is an acquired taste and the Flava Man delivers the catfighting, trashtalking goods on his foray into “reality” TV. I Love New York, much like the woman herself, is all extensions and no real hair.
Mild recommendation to avoid.
