Amazingly enough, the City of Brotherly Love made a well publicized bid to keep the Real World crew in town after a union conflict almost sent the good people of Bunim/Murray elsewhere. I understand that the show could provide hours of free publicity for the city, but wouldn't you want intellectually curious tourists who are interested in the foundation of this country, not drunken idiots taking pictures of a random apartment? Oh well. I suppose this is a moot point now.

Real World Philly has a daunting task ahead of itself. It must battle the curse of the Cold Weather Season. Has anyone else noticed that recent seasons that have been filmed in frigid locations have generally sucked? Paris? Back to New York? There's really not enough empirical data to back this up, but I would wager to say that cold weather forces the roommates indoors which results either in cabin fever bickering or drunken spats. We also get annoying episodes of people moping around with colds (I'm looking at you, Malorie).

With all that being said, let's take a look at the houseguests. MTV has been touting this season for having two gay men on the cast. Expecting lots of homoerotic activity? Not so fast. Only one of them is out. The other is in the process of coming out. Who will it be? MTV won't tell us. Tricky tricky. This is what happens when Bunim/Murray gets inspired by Playing It Straight. Also notable this season is how many people are entering the house with pre-existing relationships - aka soon-to-be-destroyed relationships. If my enthusiasm is less than palpable, that's because I cannot stand all those stupid episodes revolving around sitting on the phone, listening to an angry "soul mate", and rubbing temples in frustration. It's clear that we'll be having many of those scenes, so this season, I'll be starting up a tally. Presently, we're at 0.