DC ExtraTime: The Original Real World Heartthrob

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

This summer as the channel's has experienced a new renewal, MTV announced a new production initiative that will see it embrace new territory in a new media world. The MTV Studios unit will focus itself on developing new series and reimagined versions of its most iconic hits and franchises, not only for the MTV channel itself but also subscription video on demand and other lineal outlets, including Netflix. Among those in the mix are new takes on MTV's groundbreaking animated series Daria and Aeon Flux and the coming of age series Made, plus new docuseries The Valley, set in a border town between the U.S. and Mexico during a pivotal time in this country.

   Another series that is being rebooted in the time of them in the television business is the one that started it all for MTV and for an entire genre: The Real World... the show invented modern reality television, established the channel's leadership in the genre, and set the stage for the current monster that is The Challenge. After diverting to embracing the kinds of themes that its spinoff and other series embraced that took away its thunder, the series will return to the format that made it famous in the first place: seven strangers picked to live in a house, cameras filming them 24/7 and watching what happens "when people stop being polite and start getting real."

During Champs vs. Pros last year, DCBLOG offered a look at when two members of the same Season 2 Real World cast from back in the day got to reconnect with two of those who lived with them when they helped to pioneer the show and a whole genre in its infancy. Beth Stolarczyk and Jon Brennan lived in The Real World Los Angeles house along Venice Beach in 1993 and shared quarters with the two they met last year -- Irishman Dominic Griffin and the show's first cast member to get married Irene Berrera. They, along with all-time reality icon Tami Roman, helped set the pace for the series and for a reality genre that's now part of the entertainment landscape in the digital age.

   And as another L.A. summer neared its end in late August - and in the same house where her reality story began and near the beaches he's spent his entire life, Beth and Real World Boston's Syrus Yarborough had the chance to hang out with one of those pioneers who paved the way for twenty-six years of MTV Reality television and begat the story of one of the most-renowned franchises in the entertainment industry.... one that began when most of the new generation of Challengers and those who are part of the MTV family were too young or weren't even around yet to remember. And in many ways, the subject of this post was a cult figure himself... he is Eric Nies: The Original Real World Heartthrob.