What does it mean that Mad Men and Jersey Shore both debut their new seasons within four days of each other in late July (July 25th at 10PM on AMC, and July 19th at 10PM on MTV, respectively)?
I see it as a sign that great TV is alive and well and kicking.
For those of you who just guffawed – perhaps getting a bit of spittle on your monitor in the process – hear me out.
Mad Men represents the best of highbrow television, whereas Jersey Shore represents the best of the lowbrow. I won't go into detail about Mad Men here as I've gone off the deep end several times (here and here and here) already. It's in the running for best television series of all time heading into its fourth season, and yes, it's really that good.
Now, Jersey Shore. Let's take a step back for a moment and remember that MTV is the network that pioneered the reality show, with The Real World debuting way back in 1992 if you can believe it. While that franchise has been running on fumes for years, Jersey Shore introduced us to a fist pumping, gym routine adhering, hard tanning, laundry doing, wild drinking cast of Italian American characters from the northeast who reside in an alterno-verse that most Americans aren't familiar with, to say the very least.
Yeah, in its own way Jersey Shore is a documentary about an American subculture. And one that I feel very much okay with laughing at as I enjoy the debauchery and mayhem.
You can even argue that MTV has a certain courage in skipping past the painstaking multiculturalism and sexual diversity of The Real World and pouring a bunch of blue collar and self-described guidos and guidettes into a house "down the shore" to see what new madness might transpire.
If the trailer for Season Two is any indication, I'm glad to see that if nothing else the kids don't seem camera shy or self conscious in their newfound fame stemming from the relative phenomenon of the first season. The Situation is still deeply in the habit of referring to himself in the third person, the guys are still all about their GTL (that would be gym, tanning, laundry), Snooki is getting herself into trouble, and Sammi (love that that she hilariously gives herself the nickname of Sweetheart and calls herself "the sweetest bitch you'll ever meet) and Ronnie are still locked into some kind of love/hate/death match, and so on. While the action will move from Miami Beach and back to the Jersey Shore this season, it's the antics of this motley band of high octane nutballs that will provide the perfect bookend to the refined melancholy polish of Mad Men this summer.
Here's the Jersey Shore Season Two trailer, that you may behold for yourself:
