Maybe the Jersey Shore Cast Shouldn't Come Back

Jersey Shore's first season was filled with friendship, first-time larks into face-pummeling, amorous confessionals worthy of Plato's Symposium, blurred crotches, situations full of situations, and inadvertent promotions for Mystic Tan's newest color swatch "This Farmhand's Been Dead for Days Brown." We all learned something about turning walkovers in a short skirt and thong, and we'll pass it on to new generations as we hold the spirit stick. But have the joys of the seminal Jersey squad depleted? Rumors of a contract standoff with MTV may force the troop into retiring their flagship cast. It's for the best.

The obvious objection to a second season is the cast's awareness of its reputation, catchphrases, and bankable opportunities elsewhere. Snooki has pitched her spinoff project in every venue possible, from The Tonight Show to any other place she utters the phrase, "Snookin' for love" (read: often). MTV's The Real World doesn't run into this problem since it changes rosters every year and rotates past cast members through its countless Real World/Road Rules Challenge iterations. With Jersey Shore, MTV finds itself trying to calculate a follow-up to a show that hinged on spontaneity and our awed discovery of its characters. We can't rediscover JWOWW's kleenex-like yellow top, or Vinny's furious sweat stains. Going home again is impossible.

The less obvious objection to a second season is that the show will suck. You cannot schedule a second year of Schnickers's fisticuffs, or JWOWW's boyfriend issues, or Pauly D's passion for mixing it up on the ones and twos and resembling a Goomba. If each of these caricatures finds better vistas in spinoffs, that'd be watchable. (As if you're not already prepping for the inevitable Sammi Loves Ronnie six-episode arc.)

Let's not pretend that MTV can't find a replacement cast in Seaside Heights, if Jersey Shore is to return. Unlike The Real World, this series's appeal is tellingly based in homogenized casting. Vinny, The Situation, and Snooki hold different roles, but their penchant for parties and familial gatherings are identical. Other reality shows seek to find elusive X-factors in their new hires, but Jersey Shore's zvengalis are snookin' only for one twentysomething, tireless archetype. The formula for success is in place -- the players who will stun us with their bravado are not.

(But while it's still salient: Vinny is the best cast member, and this video proves why. Comedy!)



Comments

  • The Kid says:

    Completely agree. The locals were already fucking with the cast when being filmed (Ronnie's first fight) just imagine what would happen now that everyone knows their names.
    The cast will become just like those fools from Laguna Beach, so please MTV, recast season two, there's no shortage of these characters on the east coast.

  • TimGunn says:

    I think it should become more of a faux-reality, Hills type.

  • The Kid says:

    Isn't that what lead to some of MTV's worst ratings as teens tuned out only to start to come back because of JS and Teen Mom?

  • Martini Shark says:

    I know I may sound like an old-school "get off my lawn!" type of crank, but maybe they could find someone just marginally literate so they won't have to pay the salary of a translator and caption writer.

  • John Montres says:

    Very much agree,, besides the we have enough crap on TV.. we don't need yet another show letting us know how complete our failure is with respect to the American educational system.

  • carg0 says:

    well, if MTV chooses to go with an entirely different cast they owe it to humanity to sterilize these idiots first.
    i mean, c'mon, think of the children! the gene-pool is already infected enough...

  • California says:

    Jersey people are freaks.
    There's not one person in that pic that is attractive.
    (Isn't that what they're trying to be?)
    Vanity.Youth is vanity

  • John Montres says:

    To the individual for California, Guess what not a single cast member (if you can call them that) are from New Jersey they are actually from Staten Island (NY).