TRAIN WRECK JERSEY SHORE TO END ITS RUN.
NEW YORK — “Train wreck.”
That’s what I hear, again and again, when I ask people why they watch Jersey Shore.
“It’s such a train wreck!” they chortle.
I nod blankly and change the subject.
Am I missing the essential trainwreckiness that has made Jersey Shore such an audience-pleasing, buzz-generating hit? Or is my immunity to its charms explained simply by the fact that if I wanted to watch a train wreck, I’d choose a swifter railroad?
But this will all be moot soon. After three years and six seasons of boozy, rowdy wrecktitude, Jersey Shore concludes its MTV run Thursday.
Can it really be just three years since Snooki and memes like “smoosh” and “G.T.L.” drilled their way into our consciousness? Since a group of millennial party animals challenged Speaker of the House John Boehner as the nation’s reigning orange public figure?
Did Barbara Walters really include the Jersey Shore gang among her 10 Most Fascinating People list in 2010? (Did she figure that the full cast of eight might add up to a single fascinating person?)
These, and so many other questions, will be deferred for anyone who might be mulling them, after Thursday.
For the moment, it suffices to just marvel at this phenomenon, which convened these housemates — four brawny dudes, four bosomy gals — at the Jersey Shore (and elsewhere as the series wore on), then, with cameras rolling, turned them loose to be themselves and get their dumb on. There’s been plenty of G.T.L. (gym, tanning, laundry) during the show’s run. Plus drinking and messing around, of course, and random stabs at verbal self-expression. (Mike (The Situation) Sorrentino: “I got the shirt, but I ain’t wearing the shirt when I go out. This is the shirt before the shirt.”)
But the time has come to say goodbye. Or not.
The Season 2 premiere of Snooki & JWoww — starring Jersey Shore alumni Nicole Elizabeth (Snooki) Polizzi and Jenni (JWoww) Farley — is just around the corner. From the press release: “Fans will see Nicole prepare to become a firsttime mom, from nesting to going into labour and ultimately, get to see the first footage of her new son, Lorenzo.” That’s Jan. 8.
And in the indeterminate future, MTV plans to launch The Show with Vinny, which MTV calls a hybrid talk-reality show that “will shatter the typical talkshow format by taking the biggest celebrities out of the studio and into Vinny Guadagnino’s family home in Staten Island, N.Y.”
Call Jersey Shore a train wreck, then, albeit with no casualties. But does that beat a show that really takes you somewhere?