At the start of MTV's new reality series "College Life," a disclaimer warns, "The following program is not endorsed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison." The miserably lackluster 20 minutes and 53 seconds of the first episode provide more than enough justification for this message.
The concept of the show is simple: four freshmen at Madison are each given video cameras to document their adjustments to college life.
The first student is Jordan, an aspiring writer from Illinois. He is moving out of his home when the episode starts. The audience gets a fairly realistic glimpse of his departure when his tearful mom runs out to the car to embrace her son one more time. This scene is familiar to most college students, pulls at a few heartstrings, and almost had me convinced that "College Life" might not turn out to be as obnoxious and pointless as hinted in the preview.
This small hope, however, was quickly shattered when the audience was introduced to the remaining three students: Andrea, Alex and Kevin.
Andrea is a native of Wisconsin who is already acquainted with a few of her classmates by the time she arrives on campus. One memento she has brought from home is a clingy ex-boyfriend named Josh. Since he is also a freshman at Madison, Andrea hangs out with him every Thursday. One may begin to think that it is nice that the two remained friends post-break up, until the part during dinner when Josh declares, "You are my property," to Andrea while cutting his steak like a caveman. Awkward.
Viewers would sympathize with Andrea if she did not sound like an audio version of The Mirror's "Overheards" on repeat.
"[He's] totally cute because he's totally tall and I don't know why, but tall guys are so sexy," she gushes about a guy she invited to her dorm to watch back-to-back episodes of "Gossip Girl" and "One Tree Hill."
The guy's face is blurred out because he refuses to be filmed; he is probably worried about future stalking from Andrea's creepy Boyfriend of Christmas Past.
After the T.V.-watching date, which promotes The CW more than anything else, Andrea decides to focus on schoolwork for a little while, but soon meets a roadblock leading her to proclaim another remarkable insight on college life.
"College is so not fun because you have to study, like, every five seconds," she says.
At this point, I expected Seth Meyers from "Saturday Night Live" to pop out and say, "Really?"
As charming as Andrea is, the award for histrionics goes to Alex, a small-town girl from Texas.
"I cannot wait to learn, like, as much as I can, and meet as many people as I can," Alex said as she picked a copy of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (1999) off the shelf in the campus bookstore.
With her chirpy voice, Alex also announces that she is not interested in dating. A few minutes later, Alex is busily describing Kyle: "He's like the total package. If I had to, like, draw out a perfect guy, like, that's who I'd draw."
Wait, is this Alex or Andrea? As the episode progresses, the two girls overlap, the difference being Alex's Southern drawl. Anyway, Kyle turns out to be not so perfect, and Alex walks home crying to her friend Jess about how her relationship prospects are ruined. The scene is oddly reminiscent of the "Crying Sorority Girl" video on YouTube that my friend blitzed me last week, but is incredibly lame, rather than hilarious.
Last but not least, the standout character among the four is Kevin from Minnesota, who I'm convinced is an aging 35-year-old bro posing as a freshman. He begins his wobbly segment of the episode standing in the center of campus, between the bars and restaurants and frat row.
"Basically, college to me is, I have to keep my grades up for my mom," he explains into the camera. "Mom, I promise I'll get C's -- I'll pass."
Sorry, Mom.
Kevin's earnest promise serves as the transition into scenes filled with chugging, an array of condoms and Kevin's roommate Eric passed out over the toilet seat. The party is interrupted when Kevin receives a strike from campus authorities for having alcohol in his room. Of course, he nonchalantly tosses the letter of warning aside, and continues to drink.
Like Alex, however, Kevin too must face reality and study for his first math midterm. He enlists the help of a female friend, whose math skills may or may not be above his own.
"Zero plus one is one, idiot," she yells over the noise of the room party still going on in the background.
Somehow I made it to the last part of the episode, when Kevin angrily screams about having to get help for math as the credits begin to roll.
MTV has had its share of successful reality programs, such as "America's Best Dance Crew," but "College Life" utterly tanks at best. As one succinct online commenter said, "Could MTV have found four bigger tools to represent UW-Madison?"
Frankly, if I were a student at Madison, I would be insulted on an astronomical level upon seeing the show. Brain cells, beware.
