Shoot for the Hip

God bless MTV for padding its schedule with infinite reruns. Thus was I able to tune in last night and catch some of the premiere episode of The Real World Philadelphia, which first ran a couple of weeks ago. As much as I'd love to follow this season closely, I'm afraid I'm going to have to settle for periodic drop-ins, with the aim of ensuring that the city's hipness quotient doesn't get undersold, and that's what last night's viewing entailed.

The result was good news and bad news. On the plus side, the city looked fantastic -- bright and vibrant and filled with fun things for young people to do. Yeah, there was the obligatory huffing and puffing up the Art Museum steps, but there also was a nice shot of Logan Circle, and Old City looked like the place to be. Negatively, the previews for tomorrow's new episode have some of the housemates being hassled by the cops inside a club. Philadelphia -- the place that loves you back. Just not too much -- it doesn't want you to get a big head or anything.

As for the pretty young people, well, it's the usual collection of dysfunctional hotties who are laughably clueless when it comes to how the world works. Each year brings a new handful of angsters who think they have to act more and more "outrageous" -- usually defined as involving massive quantities of alcohol and porn-worthy sexual situations -- in order to make an impression. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm finding such behavior, especially in the preening, self-involved world of reality television, less shocking than it is tiresome. Though I'd be willing to cut Mel, the short-haired California girl, quite a bit of slack ... .