One of the first "reality shows", Real World is gearing up for its thirteenth season, this time set in Paris. Each season a bunch of strangers are tossed together to live in a house. The cameras roll as the cast members live their lives, build new relationships, fight, fall in love and eventually leave. This is the Real World.
The show started off in New York, and since then strangers have lived together in San Fransisco, Miami, Seattle, and London, but living in "sin city" seems to have corrupted our cast. Trishelle, a small-town girl, doesn't waste time getting in the Vegas swing of things. The city turns small-town kids Trishelle and Frank into big city partiers. The whole cast seems to develop drinking disorders (no wonder they had no money!) as we watch them drink themselves silly in every episode. There's sex, sex, and more sex....and almost everyone is involved. After watching "The Real World You Never Saw: Las Vegas" I thought I knew what to expect...but I was wrong. This was one crazy, crazy season! Kudos to MTV Home Video for releasing this season before releasing seasons 2-11.
Video
Shot on video, this release is free from any problems like dust or scratches you'd expect from a show shot on film. The colors are nice and bright, and the video suffers only from a bit of noise. Some scenes are a little dark, which is alright considering they are shot in a night club. The biggest mistake on the set is the lack of chapters for the episodes. There's no excuse for this at all since TV shows come with natural chapter breaks called "commercials." At first I was happy to find that each disc only comes with one opening (in the first episode) and one ending (in the last episode) until I realized that we were missing out on the footage that plays during the credits! At least there was a "play all" feature. Note to MTV: I'd be more than happy to consult on your TV releases to help you avoid mistakes like you made on this set. I was dissapointed to discover the reunion special wasn't included on the disc. I understand Brynn is now engaged, and I wanted to find out how Alton and Irulan were doing. Oh well.
Audio
The audio for "Real World: Las Vegas" is nice and clean. For the most part the dialog is clean, but given the type of show it is, some muffled dialog is to be expected. This is a Dolby Surround 2.0 track which is mainly driven by the center speaker (dialog). The rears are occasionally used for music, but that's all. There is not a single piece of recognizable music in the entire season. I would assume that there were songs by popular bands when it aired on MTV, but never having seen the show on TV I can't know for certain. Either way, the music on the set is fairly good, and is vocal free.
Although there are only 4 openings for the show (one on each disc) they are way too loud! There's also a synching issue on the first episode of disc 3. Approx. 6:27 into the episode, Jean's lips are moving and the audio isn't synched up.
Cast Profiles (8:38)
Interviews and auditions for: Trishelle (1:30), Alton (1:05), Brynn (1:08), Arissa (1:13), Steven (1:22), Frank (1:12) and Irula (1:08). If you have the previously released "Real World You Never Saw" disc, then you've seen this material already.
Audition Tapes (14:41)
It's really nice to watch the audition tapes for Brynn, Steven, Trishelle and Frank. Some of the audio is pretty brutal (Trishelle). I love how Trishelle says her tape will be short, but it's the longest piece! I wonder what happened to the tapes for Irulan, Alton and Arissa.
House Tour (6:06)
Brynn and Frank lead us on a tour of the room the cast had in the Palms hotel. This is the same tour that can be found on the "Real World You Never Saw" disc.
Bonus Footage (3:01)
Just a bunch of footage that was cut from the show. I was hoping this was the footage that was cut from the end of each episode, but it's not.
Summary
Wow, this was a crazy season. Cast members close to leaving, or close to getting kicked off; people hooking up with anyone and everyone; a near threesome in the tub, then later in bed; the yelling, the screaming, and the throwing of objects. I've watched bits and pieces from other seasons, and almost the entire season set in San Fransisco, but this season was just crazy. I was really happy to see how much each cast member leaned about themselves, and what they took away from the experience. This is a solid season for Real World fans, or people that enjoy reality TV.
