Ah, The Real World. A shameless drunken social experiment that lost its lust sometime between season 400 and 1,287, it still lives in order to reheat the comfort food of the new Internet Generation. Popularized for incessant censoring bleeps, nights on the town with way too much booze, endless hook-ups (in the now traditional hot tub), and always-changing sexual orientations.  It's possible that Real World will never die, making it either MTV's golden child or very clear after many deplorable seasons of drunken twenty-somethings, that its psychological brainteaser masked as a reality show on acid is actually a right of passage (or both). You can't grow up without first having an obsession with a season of The Real World. Which is okay, because even after all these years, the show still is a delightful - if stale - guilty pleasure.

The formula is simplistic to follow, because it never had an in-depth one to begin with (look back at season one, I dare you).  Here it is (Real World veterans skip to the next paragraph): seven "strangers" (this term is used very loosely), all from different backgrounds (education, race, families, sexual identities), come together in an over-priced loft in a metropolitan area (this time around Denver, CO) and live together. What they turn into is truly a sinister cabal.

Meet Colie (22, New Jersey), with a fiery, tongue-in-cheek personality, and a "hobby" like making out, she's a pure-bred Real World-er. From the very beginning she explains that she wants be all over the youngest housemate, crooner Alex (21, Arizona).  Alex is the resident macho man (there's always at least one). And as happens every season, things get complicated from day one. Let's just say Colie's new Oakland Raiderette "friend," Jenn (22, California), gets "cozy" with Colie's new beau.

Also a trend (and an annoying one): the instant stars and the late bloomers. We won't learn much about Tyrie (23, Nebraska), Stephen (22, Washington D.C.), and Brooke (24, Tennessee) besides that they're, witty, conservative, and cloyingly blithe. Then there's Davis (22, Florida), who represents the redundant gay-man-coming-to-terms-with-his-own-sexuality set that continually fuels arguments with the highly conservative housemate, in this case, Stephen. The only interesting thing left here is the irony: Davis was also born into a conservative, religious family. Yet, his wish to be openly gay has left him and his family estranged. It's not entirely tear-inducing, but it's progress for the "character" Davis is inhabiting.

Of all these younglings it's Colie who has the most panache. Utterly complacent, she's free spirited in a destructive, risible way that holds so much desire for Las Vegas' Trishelle. In one of the show's overly-candid "confessionals" she explains herself along the lines of "I'm not good at baseball, but I'm great at making out." Which holds true for The Real World franchise as well - sort of. It's not great at keeping it original, but at least it maintains what little grace it has left (Wait, did it ever have any grace?). Ultimately, the show has aged well, ready to blatantly program teens to "stop being polite" - and act as a worthy guilty pleasure -  almost 20 years later.