Roommate romance dominates ‘Real World’ return to Vegas

It's gotta be the lights.

Whatever it is that's illuminating the love-drunk houseguests on "The Real World: Las Vegas" (10 p.m. Wednesday, MTV) can't be simple, run-of-the-mill bulbs. In addition to light, they also must be emitting a potent blend of monkey pheromones, Jagermeister, Charlie Sheen's Adonis DNA and just a hint of Drakkar Noir.

There's just no other logical explanation for how badly the new castmates want to hook up with each other within minutes of their arrival at the Hard Rock Hotel.

"Do you think any of the guys here are cute?"

"What do you feel about the girls?"

"Who do you think's the hottest chick?"

"I would hook up with Naomi."

"Dude, it sucks that Nany has a boyfriend."

"Nany has a boyfriend. It's like a dagger. Straight to the heart."

Ah, Nany. The 21-year-old criminal justice major from Jamestown, N.Y., is the only one of the cast members who's in a relationship -- and a six-year one at that -- as the show's 25th season gets under way. Yet she divides her time between talking to her boyfriend on the phone and telling anyone who'll listen how attracted she is to Adam, the 22-year-old bad boy from Portland, Maine.

For his part, Adam devotes most of his days to stalking Nany as though she were a wounded gazelle. "I've definitely already decided that Nany and her boyfriend will break up at some point during our stay in Vegas," he tells the camera. "I'm going to be there to pick up the pieces."

Honestly, there's no way that doesn't end in a Lifetime movie.

Elsewhere, Heather, a 21-year-old communications major from Delran, N.J., is smitten with Dustin, a 24-year-old charmer from Rayne, La. But during a game of "I've Never," she's shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Dustin has had sex in a hot tub and had a threeway. Funny, I always assumed those were questions 1 and 1A on the "Real World" application.

Dustin is into Heather as well, but he's fighting the urge to hook up with her, because girls are all territorial and stuff, and that would seriously interfere with his bringing other girls back to the suite.

After a while, you just want to shake each and every one of them and remind them that (a) they're living in a tricked-out penthouse at the Hard Rock, (b) they're given access to a seemingly limitless supply of booze and (c) they're being followed by a camera crew that guarantees that any outsider who shows even the slightest bit of interest in them will end up on national TV. The waters of the Vegas dating pool haven't been so thoroughly chummed since an in-his-prime Sinatra prowled the Strip.

Interestingly, the lone voice of reason amid all the roommate romance comes from recently deflowered 23-year-old Michael, whose motto is simple: "You don't (expletive) where you eat."

The shy Southern gentleman from tiny Nokesville, Va., is easily the most interesting of the houseguests. "I will not go to a strip club," Michael says early on. " 'Cause my grandma will beat me." Then, assessing the first night's wild hot-tub party, he lovably declares, "Grandma would not like that."

But it takes less than 24 hours for him to come out of his shell. "Tonight, I'm gonna try to talk to some of the girls down at the club that I find cute or whatever. And maybe I'm gonna be a little bit of a dirty whore."

It's hard to tell whether he's just now deciding to broaden his horizons or if the whole naive thing's an act and he's really Keyser Soze. But either way, it shouldn't be long before he's doing blow off a hooker's ribcage.

And therein lies the biggest problem with "The Real World's" return to Las Vegas: It can't stop playing up the city's worst stereotypes.

"I have no idea how I'm gonna deal with livin' in Vegas. I'll be honest, I'm a little scared," Michael says, as though he just began filming "The Real World: Seventh Circle of Hell."

But that's kind of been "The Real World's" standard operating procedure ever since 2002, when the show first rolled into Vegas -- and then promptly went right off the rails.

"We ruined 'The Real World,' " Steven Hill told me years ago of his cast, whose drunken antics put the Palms on the map and changed the course of the series forever.

"When 'The Real World' started, it was really something relevant. And now it's really not," he said in 2007 as a reunion miniseries was hitting the air. "It's the same thing over and over again. It's sex and drinking and fighting and stuff like that."

And as shocking as that first "Real World: Las Vegas" cast seemed at the time, this year's group of seven strangers makes them feel downright quaint.

Hopefully, the rest of the country will realize that they'd almost certainly behave the same way whether they were in Las Vegas, Des Moines or Vatican City.

I'm telling you, it's gotta be the lights.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.