#Siesta key show series#

His girlfriend, herself shot in prurient close-up, ogles him from the beach in a manner so salacious I blushed.

(In a moment characteristic of this startlingly lascivious show, one male specimen emerges from the surf like Venus on the half shell. The show follows various characters in post-collegiate miasma-none have quite found real jobs yet, all the better to spend a lot of time with their parents and even more time lying around in swimsuits as pop hits blare in the background. Siesta Key seems to signal that the network’s identity crisis-trying to figure out what to put on television to capture an audience of young people who are growing away from TV-is far from over.

With far less sophistication but at least a spark of wit, Jersey Shore got that its characters were embarrassing themselves. Its treatment of interpersonal bickering as the stuff of great melodrama was cleverly deflating, and set a playbook that’s been adopted widely across reality TV. Its stars were sometimes in on the joke, sometimes not. The Hills, one of the most influential shows of the century so far, brought to bear upon its characters a shrewd and at times lacerating analytic eye. The show itself is a mess, proving that the formula that made The Hills work was the particular and odd charisma of its leads, who managed to turn vapidity into something soulful.

#Siesta key show series#

The series combines the aggressively “cinematic” shooting style and ennui-filled lead performances of past MTV hit The Hills with the edgily loucheness that characterized the network’s other recent reality hit, Jersey Shore. Siesta Key, which debuted July 31, is an hour-long reality-based drama set among young twenty-somethings on Florida’s Gulf Coast. MTV’s latest hope for a reboot is the equivalent, more or less, of rummaging through the nearish past to see if old styles still fit.