RW: London (1995)

[snarts]

Marathon airing 9/3/16 on MTV Classic.

I realize many dislike this season but I loved it.  They all came from such diverse interesting backgrounds.  Plus, London!

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by snarts

[RealityCowgirl]

Not my favorite season, but I also have a warm spot for it - warmer today, given some of the utter crap of the more recent seasons. 

I appreciated the fact that they had interests and aspirations. Still like that as I watch today.

[Sister Havana]

I also loved this season. I still do. And that house is just fantastic. Even if it isn't as big as later houses, it's got loads of charm.

1 hour ago, RealityCowgirl said:

I appreciated the fact that they had interests and aspirations. Still like that as I watch today.

If I remember correctly, when they cast that season (at least the American cast members), they were looking for people who had a specific reason for going to London besides being on the show. 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Sister Havana

[Bastet]

Have I mentioned how bummed I am at not getting MTV Classics?  I'll live vicariously through you guys.

I, too, enjoyed this season - at the time, and even more in hindsight once the show went off the rails for me. 

[AndySmith]

I liked this season too. Not the most exciting one, but the lack of bitchy dramaz between the cast is quite refreshing, especially given the turn this show took with Las Vegas.

And there is still plenty to snark on, between Jacinda's "I'm a professional model!" attitude, Neil's pretentiousness, and Mike being...Mike.

And props to them for living in Notting Hill back before it became hip to the rest of the world and over-gentrified.

[snarts]

Because I can't watch without being curious as to their current lives...

Relatively recent article on Mike Johnson.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/print-edition/2013/04/26/st-louis-character-mike-johnson.html

[lidarose9]

Why are these eps only a half hour?

[imjagain]

Jacinda  looks so much like Kendall  Jenner to me. 

*Eta : the model Jenner,  I can't remember which is which. 

Edited September 4, 2016 by imjagain

[Sister Havana]

2 hours ago, lidarose9 said:

Why are these eps only a half hour?

The first 19 seasons ran as half hour episodes. Since Hollywood, they've cut the number of episodes in half and made them an hour long.

[GreatKazu]

5 hours ago, snarts said:

Because I can't watch without being curious as to their current lives...

Relatively recent article on Mike Johnson.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/print-edition/2013/04/26/st-louis-character-mike-johnson.html

Need to be a subscriber to read.

[MissMel]

18 hours ago, GreatKazu said:

Need to be a subscriber to read.

It's from April 2013. He's still into racing. Endurance sports car racing.  He was still managing Stevenson Motorsports in NC. He had 50 combined owner/manager wins in 24 hour races in the Grand Am Series and the American Les Mans Series. He liked his Real World experience and would "definitely" do it again but was glad when it was over to get back to his racing career. His dad owned Duke Manufacturing Co. in St. Louis. 

[GreatKazu]

Thank you MissMel!

[imjagain]

I disliked Mike when I originally watched the show in 95. I actually didn't mind him to much on re-watch. I liked that he listened to the others regarding the word "bitch"  being thrown around. 

 

I still have a few episodes to watch and while I can see the why I considered it so boring  back then, I enjoyed it way more than I expected. 

Sharon did talk too much but she seemed like a genuinely  nice person. 

I had no real feelings about Kat now or then, Mmmm. 

Jacinda I liked at times. What I really enjoyed on the re-watch, is how strong she was about what she was willing to do with regard to modeling. 

Jay just needed to grow up a little more and I could see the homesick all over him. 

 Lars  cracked me up then and now. 

My 43 year old self found Neil completely boring. Lol.  Not that I found him that interesting then,  but  man I couldn't  believe how obnoxious I now found him. 

[AndySmith]

As annoying as Neil was, I still find him somewhat more tolerable than Glen (LA), Judd (San Francisco), and both Sean and Jason (Boston).

[BK1978]

I watched two episodes of this and found it to be very boring.  I feel like I have written that in every episode thread thus far. 

[SlovakPrincess]

MTV Classics - where has this channel been all my life? ... well, ok, since regular MYV turned to shit, anyway.  

Happened upon the London marathon the other day, and it held up pretty well on re-watch!  Actually, now that I'm an adult and so much older, I realize how young they were and feel more sympathy for them.  

 Jacinda could be irksome at times, but her experiences and criticisms of the modeling industry were always interesting -- and she would not be pushed around on set, which was great.  I really liked her this time. 

Mike wasn't so bad, and by the end he really appreciated London.  

Neil is seems so much less worldly and mysterious to me now, LOL.  I thought he was so edgy back then, but he was just a kid like the rest of them. 

I still like Sharon and Lars.  Back when it originally aired, I related the most to Jay and Kat -- on re watch they were nice, but just kinda ... there.  

I really liked it back when they had real jobs or aspirations, rather than it just being a hookup scene.  

[Asp Burger]

London:  The pleasant season. That's really all there is to say. I think it took B/M a few years to get back on track after the big zeitgeist moment of the San Francisco season.  London and Miami both were attempts to tweak the formula and keep the show fresh, and they didn't quite pan out. The London cast had all these esoteric pursuits they were allegedly going to bring with them, like racing and the theater and deejaying, but then they didn't do much. Then in Miami they overcorrected for London's perceived "boredom" by filling the house with super-obnoxious people, so if you wanted screaming matches, you got your wish, but episode after episode was derailed by the start-your-own-business crap.  

Still, London is okay in small doses. It's just that whenever I tried to do a marathon, I could see how desperate the producers were to fill half hours. There were long conversations shown that were so low-key that I wondered how boring the unused footage must have been.    

I looked at Jay's official Facebook. He was a news anchor in Washington State for about six years, until recently. I wouldn't even have recognized the middle-aged version of him. Seriously: he had put up this clip and I was looking at a man and woman narrating what they were about to show, and I was thinking Jay was going to be a field reporter in the clip. Then they showed the clip, no Jay, and cut back to the anchor desk, and the woman called the man "Jay," and I realized I'd been looking at him all along.

He also has a home video of himself demonstrating tap-dancing for his baby, so I was like, "Yeah, that's Jay all right."  

[LemonSoda]

I keep hoping this season and others of that era will show up on streaming or for sale so I can watch again. I'd like to rewatch as an adult. I was able to catch a few episodes of Boston and had forgotten what life was like when we all had real conversations, introduced ourselves to others without our eyes glued to a smartphone screen. 

[Asp Burger]

It really was a different show. In the last episode of the London season, they show Neil and Mike having drinks and talking about how they thought they were going to hate each other at first, but then they became good friends, and they actually have more in common than they originally thought. The four guys go together to buy Kat a dress as a going-away present, and she loves it, and she's crying. The episode ends with a flashback to the first day, in which Lars makes a toast and hopes they will all be friends for life.

I watched that episode again recently and I had to remind myself that the Vegas season was just seven years away. And the Miami season was only one year away. London isn't the best season to watch in a marathon, but it's sweet in small doses, and I can relate to these people better than I can most of the later casts.   

[Floatingbison]

The London season was the first time I watched a television series and realized it was the most brutally boring thing I'd ever experienced.  I remember during a marathon showing of it, I left the house and ran errands for about four hours, came back home and they were pretty much talking about the same things as when I left.

[Hiyo]

This season wasn't the most exciting as others have said, but looking back, it's still one of the better ones.

Quote

I really liked it back when they had real jobs or aspirations, rather than it just being a hookup scene.  

That is one of the things I liked about this season. It really felt like a bunch of people who were all rooming together at the same time, who had their own interests and weren't there just to do nothing but be filmed, and none of the exaggerated posing or mugging for the camera that we saw in previous seasons like with Puck. Between that and the occasional aimlessness we saw with a few of the castmates, it kind of does feel like one of the more "real" seasons of the Real World, even if it wasn't always exciting.

Also, some really nice London porn! Especially when it was on the cusp of the "Cool Britannia" era.

[Zima]

On 4/29/2020 at 12:28 AM, Floatingbison said:

The London season was the first time I watched a television series and realized it was the most brutally boring thing I'd ever experienced.  I remember during a marathon showing of it, I left the house and ran errands for about four hours, came back home and they were pretty much talking about the same things as when I left.

I tried rewatching this season recently, and after the first few episodes, I was bored as hell. 

[heatherchandler]

Boring overall?  Yes

But someone got his tongue bitten off and a heart in the mail!  That was crazy!

[Hiyo]

An ad from MTV Europe for people who wanted to audition for the show:

 

Edited April 11, 2021 by Hiyo

[ljenkins782]

I watched this season in real time when it aired and I think I liked it well enough simply because I loved the show, but it's one that I have never been able to sit through a full rewatch again.

There were standout moments of course, but I think I'd be content with a highlight reel of this season vs full episodes. My general memory of it is kind of a bleak gray background with a very muted house atmosphere. 

I did watch a few random episodes that had some elements of interest. Like Mike's rich father and stepmother coming over, you could learn a lot about Mike just by seeing his interactions with his dad. It was clear that his dad didn't really respect him or think he'd accomplished enough in life and kinda eclipsed him his entire life. It explained a lot about Mike's very rigid world views too.

Another episode that was interesting simply because I know that Jay later came out of the closet was the episode with his girlfriend where he's buying her lingerie. I don't know if it's Monday morning quarterbacking or what, but it did seem like there was an awkwardness in that relationship when you watch that one. And I wonder how that girl feels watching that back, lol.

Also, I remember that my sister met Lars in real life around the time this aired, he was in the US dj-ing, I guess. Her main takeaway was that he smelled really, really bad, like B.O., hair grease, and infrequent showers. So that's all I think of when I look at him in these old episodes. 

[snarts]

2 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:

Another episode that was interesting simply because I know that Jay later came out of the closet was the episode with his girlfriend where he's buying her lingerie. I don't know if it's Monday morning quarterbacking or what, but it did seem like there was an awkwardness in that relationship when you watch that one. And I wonder how that girl feels watching that back, lol.

Jay came out of the closet?  Last I saw he was married with kids and living in Yakima, WA

https://twitter.com/jayfrankkepr?lang=en

https://www.facebook.com/jayfrankanchor/

https://community.chronicle.com/people/1074763-jay-frank/profile?cid=VTXCollabName

[ljenkins782]

48 minutes ago, snarts said:

Jay came out of the closet?  Last I saw he was married with kids and living in Yakima, WA

https://twitter.com/jayfrankkepr?lang=en

https://www.facebook.com/jayfrankanchor/

https://community.chronicle.com/people/1074763-jay-frank/profile?cid=VTXCollabName

Hmmm, I don't remember where I heard that, but apparently it wasn't true. Never mind then, lol. 

[choclatechip45]

It was a rumor that went around in the mid 2000s because I definitely heard it.

[ljenkins782]

2 hours ago, choclatechip45 said:

It was a rumor that went around in the mid 2000s because I definitely heard it.

Thank you, I'm glad someone else heard that, I was wondering why I thought that.

Also, he has not changed AT ALL, physically. Like, he looks eerily the same as he did at 18. 

[choclatechip45]

9 minutes ago, ljenkins782 said:

Thank you, I'm glad someone else heard that, I was wondering why I thought that.

Also, he has not changed AT ALL, physically. Like, he looks eerily the same as he did at 18. 

No problem. I feel like it came from a cast member during one of those speaking engagements who probably never met Jay and it was posted on the rw/rr blog. I remember finding out he was married to a woman a couple years ago and was quite confused.

[Hiyo]

The London segment from the 1995 Rel World Reunion Special.

 

[Bastet]

I re-watched this season this weekend, and was surprised to find myself only infrequently annoyed with Mike.  He is the quintessential Ugly American, but he does come to realize that about himself.  I doubt he'd changed all that much, but it probably doesn't matter, because he wasn't malicious.

And he had the slightest awareness of his economic privilege, which is more than I can say for Jacinda.  Oh my gods.  "Worrying about money is just so silly."  Fool, that's because you've been rolling in it since you were 14 (and maybe before; I don't know if she grew up wealthy).  She was just utterly insufferable with her "I'm so worldly and non-conformist" attitude, but she wasn't malicious, either.  Too much of a prankster, but not mean.  Just really out of touch, but in a way that was inevitable given her background.  I knew absolutely nothing about modeling back then, so it was interesting to learn through her what's involved, and how often she had to stand up for herself on shoots.

I totally thought Jay was gay when I originally watched, and I remember hearing that he'd come out, but then I read he was married to a woman, so I have no idea, and it doesn't matter anyway.  Like Kat, he was painfully young.  And so stuck in his high school glory days, complete with having a girlfriend who was still in HS and going home to see a play at his old school.  But I felt for him with all the pressure on him to produce another play.

I remembered Jacinda buying a puppy (do not get me started), but had forgotten she also surprised Kat with a kitten to cheer her up.  I was pretty fired up about the irresponsible approach to pet ownership, but the two of them had the pets with them at the airport, so they didn't get dumped as I'd feared.

I had also completely forgotten their trip to Kenya.  It was interesting for Mike, of all people, to be among those confronting the problem of treating the Massai like spectacles, objects of entertainment.

What I had not forgotten is how truly terrible I found Neil's music.  I liked him, but damn. 

And, speaking of music, there are some seriously sly song choices this season.

I enjoyed revisiting it.  They're a group of good people who had the typical squabbles that come from living together but didn't get into melodramatic bouts over personality differences.  They all just did their thing, but they also sat down to dinner a lot when everyone was home.

[Bastet]

I forgot to mention how hard I laughed when Mike's dad and stepmom came to visit and Neil described them as the Bundys, just with money.  Spot on.  And then later we met his mom and stepdad (when Mike went home for a race, presumably because the producers set it up - like Jay's visit home - to show him not suck at something) and they were the same.  It's no wonder Mike said with a straight face he'd always thought people in all other countries looked up to America, and he was shocked - shocked, I say - to learn that's not true. 

Also, how refreshing to see the quaint notion in Kat and Neil that a sexual attraction isn't worth acting on for the awkwardness that would inevitably ensue given the living arrangement.  Back when there was sometimes flirtation, but everyone understood the life motto "Don't shit where you eat". 

[Hiyo]

I will say Mike and Jacinda were authentic for their age and the time period. It didn't seem like they were playing a part, they were who they were. And as you said, they weren't malicious. Mike was the product of his upbringing (and to be honest, much more representative of many Americans than most Americans would ever like to admit). As for Jacinda, I can see her being who she was based on her life as well. Traveling around the world as a model from the age of 14 would make people a bit conceited.

Overall, I liked this season. It wasn't the most wild or crazy season, but it did feel real (the free rent aspect of living in a city like London aside) in that they all basically did their own thing, before producer shenanigans and people trying to play a "role" on the show really took over the franchise. 

[ljenkins782]

5 hours ago, Hiyo said:

I will say Mike and Jacinda were authentic for their age and the time period. It didn't seem like they were playing a part, they were who they were. And as you said, they weren't malicious. Mike was the product of his upbringing (and to be honest, much more representative of many Americans than most Americans would ever like to admit). As for Jacinda, I can see her being who she was based on her life as well. Traveling around the world as a model from the age of 14 would make people a bit conceited.

Overall, I liked this season. It wasn't the most wild or crazy season, but it did feel real (the free rent aspect of living in a city like London aside) in that they all basically did their own thing, before producer shenanigans and people trying to play a "role" on the show really took over the franchise. 

This season was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of producer interference in the form of the group job. Although LA Jon usually takes the blame for his days of kool-aid and TNN, it was Mike and Jay slothing around the London house that made them decide that they needed to give people something to do.

Quote

And he had the slightest awareness of his economic privilege, which is more than I can say for Jacinda.  Oh my gods.  "Worrying about money is just so silly."  Fool, that's because you've been rolling in it since you were 14 (and maybe before; I don't know if she grew up wealthy).  She was just utterly insufferable with her "I'm so worldly and non-conformist" attitude, but she wasn't malicious, either.  Too much of a prankster, but not mean.  Just really out of touch, but in a way that was inevitable given her background.

Yes, it's easy to not worry about money if you've got lots of it. Funny how that works. I also can't stand the "modeling is a great way to make money and see the world" attitude that vaguely suggests that it's an option open to everyone. She'd use it to explain that the modeling itself didn't mean anything to her, it was just a means to an end, but it's a pretty rarified means.

Quote

I totally thought Jay was gay when I originally watched, and I remember hearing that he'd come out, but then I read he was married to a woman, so I have no idea, and it doesn't matter anyway.  Like Kat, he was painfully young.  And so stuck in his high school glory days, complete with having a girlfriend who was still in HS and going home to see a play at his old school.  But I felt for him with all the pressure on him to produce another play.

Jay was a very young 18, honestly, probably too young for this show. Kat was also young, but she'd gone away to NYC for school and had some taste of life on her own. By contrast, Jay seemed like he needed a note to miss school for this. I think he was a bit of a casting misfire, it's one thing to want that naive, wide-eyed type who's going to experience new things, but if they're SO green, they won't really know how to make those experiences happen, especially in another country. Cue the sleeping all day long for half the season. 

[Asp Burger]

Jay never "pinged" for me that way. I think he was just a straight boy who liked theater and dance.

I agree he seemed younger than 18. He just wasn't worldly, and he wasn't as committed to expanding his horizons and learning from others as some of the other "sheltered young things" they have cast. On one hand, that made him easier for me to take than Julie "Educate Me! Educate Me Now!" Stouffer of New Orleans, or Cory of SF, who would blurt out a question like "Are you part white?" But on the other hand, it didn't make for great TV. 

He might have done better if this season had been set in an American city, so being away from home wasn't such a departure.  

When they did that Real World mega-reunion special of 2001, with cast members from all of the first ten seasons participating in a photo shoot and having a big party, Jay somehow completely avoided the cameras. I didn't even know he'd been there until I saw him half-smiling for a photo afterward. He stayed on brand.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Asp Burger

[choclatechip45]

I'm watching this for the first time and it is a slog. It is boring. I'm glad they started the group job. Besides Sharon I don't really like any of the other cast members. They all seem bratty or think they are the shit. I'll take a season like LA with unlikeable cast members because at least they are entertaining!

[Sister Havana]

If I remember correctly, Jay's visa (possibly Mike's as well) prevented him from working/doing anything commercially while he was in London. That's why he did his play at the house instead of the theater as planned. I know he mentioned something about it during that episode. 

 

 

 

 

[Tatum]

London was the first of the RW I ever watched. I only saw one episode because it happened to be on at my grandma's house (we didn't have cable) and I remember being utterly confused by the reality TV genre. I was telling my friend about the show, and I mentioned something about a scene I watched where Jacinda was arguing with her model boyfriend, and my friend was like, ooh I love Jacinda! She's my favorite- did you know she's a model? And I still remember replying, the actress or the character? It just seemed unfathomable to me, this newfangled reality thing.

 

Speaking of Jacinda, Lars said in the book that she was kind of malicious at times. The example he cited was she would ask roommates what they thought of someone's girlfriend or boyfriend, and if they had anything unflattering to say, Jacinda would run back to the roommate who had the boyfriend or girlfriend and tell them an exaggerated version of what the other one said. He said he felt like since Jacinda traveled so much and moved around a lot, she never worried about staying on good terms with people so didn't mind going scorched earth with anyone (that is paraphrasing quite a bit, that isn't how he said it).

 

I also remember reading the TWoP recaps and the recapper had their suspicions on how successful of a model Jacinda really was (I think Kmart and Sears got thrown around a lot as potential bookings).

 

The other really funny thing I read in the book- Mike was really annoyed with the editing suggesting he had a crush on Kat and was jealous of her crush on Neil. Like, he seemed pretty bitter about it.

[Asp Burger]

10 hours ago, Tatum said:

I also remember reading the TWoP recaps and the recapper had their suspicions on how successful of a model Jacinda really was (I think Kmart and Sears got thrown around a lot as potential bookings).

Gustave was the recapper of that season, I think. They did seasons 1-7 as a summer special with various recappers pitching in during the slow season. They had begun in real time with season 8, Hawaii, because there wasn't any Mighty Big TV/TWoP before that. 

I also remember "Bolivian Cosmo" as one of his guesses about where Jacinda's photos ended up. 

He hated Sharon so much, which was funny. She was such a fan favorite. Melissa of New Orleans recently gave an interview and said Sharon was the only reason to watch London.

[Tatum]

9 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

Gustave was the recapper of that season, I think. They did seasons 1-7 as a summer special with various recappers pitching in during the slow season. They had begun in real time with season 8, Hawaii, because there wasn't any Mighty Big TV/TWoP before that. 

I also remember "Bolivian Cosmo" as one of his guesses about where Jacinda's photos ended up. 

He hated Sharon so much, which was funny. She was such a fan favorite. Melissa of New Orleans recently gave an interview and said Sharon was the only reason to watch London.

Yes, I remember he mocked Sharon quite a bit, but had pretty similar level of loathing for both Mike and Neil, and only slightly less for Jacinda. I don't remember any comment he made about Kat or Jay, and the only thing I remember him saying about Lars was that it was kind of shitty of him to go up to a woman at the bar, flirt with her, only as a way to grease the wheels for inept Mike to come in and take over.

[Asp Burger]

9 minutes ago, Tatum said:

I don't remember any comment he made about Kat or Jay

He liked Jay at first and thought he was cute, and then the sheer laziness -- and the "Why wasn't all of London's West End eager to present my student play?" attitude -- wore him down.

But Mike was definitely his favorite target. He got a lot of mileage out of the hair alone. 

He did a good job finding humor in a season that even its fans will admit is...mellow.

[choclatechip45]

20 hours ago, Tatum said:

London was the first of the RW I ever watched. I only saw one episode because it happened to be on at my grandma's house (we didn't have cable) and I remember being utterly confused by the reality TV genre. I was telling my friend about the show, and I mentioned something about a scene I watched where Jacinda was arguing with her model boyfriend, and my friend was like, ooh I love Jacinda! She's my favorite- did you know she's a model? And I still remember replying, the actress or the character? It just seemed unfathomable to me, this newfangled reality thing.

 

Speaking of Jacinda, Lars said in the book that she was kind of malicious at times. The example he cited was she would ask roommates what they thought of someone's girlfriend or boyfriend, and if they had anything unflattering to say, Jacinda would run back to the roommate who had the boyfriend or girlfriend and tell them an exaggerated version of what the other one said. He said he felt like since Jacinda traveled so much and moved around a lot, she never worried about staying on good terms with people so didn't mind going scorched earth with anyone (that is paraphrasing quite a bit, that isn't how he said it).

 

I also remember reading the TWoP recaps and the recapper had their suspicions on how successful of a model Jacinda really was (I think Kmart and Sears got thrown around a lot as potential bookings).

 

The other really funny thing I read in the book- Mike was really annoyed with the editing suggesting he had a crush on Kat and was jealous of her crush on Neil. Like, he seemed pretty bitter about it.

I listened to an interview with Kat a few years ago and she said she has never watched her season due to the fact she didn't like how they edited the love triangle with her Mike and Neil saying the scene in the kitchen she is thinking about her test they made it appear she was deciding between the two guys. 

I couldn't stand Neil during the one challenge he did when he had the tantrum about military propaganda. 

[Tatum]

1 hour ago, choclatechip45 said:

due to the fact she didn't like how they edited the love triangle with her Mike and Neil saying the scene in the kitchen she is thinking about her test they made it appear she was deciding between the two guys. 

Mike was pissed about that as well. I didn't watch much of the series, but he said he never had a crush on Kat, or was under any impression people thought he did, and the producers sat him down and were like, we know you like Kat, but FYI, she likes Neil. And Mike said he didn't think much of it, until he watched a scene where it appears he is glowering at Kat and Neil while Hey Jealousy by Gin Blossoms is playing in the background.

[choclatechip45]

10 minutes ago, Tatum said:

Mike was pissed about that as well. I didn't watch much of the series, but he said he never had a crush on Kat, or was under any impression people thought he did, and the producers sat him down and were like, we know you like Kat, but FYI, she likes Neil. And Mike said he didn't think much of it, until he watched a scene where it appears he is glowering at Kat and Neil while Hey Jealousy by Gin Blossoms is playing in the background.

That is the scene Kat was talking about!

[Giuseppe]

So it seems like we've had rumors or speculation about a Homecoming for most of the early seasons except for this one. Has there been no chatter about getting the London gang back together? Or have I overlooked it in some thread or another?

[Asp Burger]

I haven't heard a word about London.

I think they may have bypassed San Francisco and London in Homecoming considerations, for different reasons. London has always been the black sheep of "classic period" Real World. Some people do like it, but the overwhelming verdict since 1995 has been "dull." From a producer/network point of view, the conclusion might be "They were the dullest cast ever when they were supposedly young and wild. Why get them back together when they've probably calmed down even more?"  

[Black Knight]

I've never seen this season. I know the Paris season had an issue in that the cast was actually living outside the city and it wasn't easy for them to get to the city and they couldn't afford to do stuff in the city anyway. Did the London cast have a similar problem?

[Asp Burger]

Here's the London house, @Black Knight. It was well located in Notting Hill. 

http://www.realworldhouses.com/realworld4.html

London had the first really cool house. It's the first season in which you think, "Yeah, that's a Real World house." The New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco spaces were nice -- and you'd surely have to have had a lot of income in 1992-94 to afford them -- but they weren't all that eye-catching or telegenic. They didn't scream luxury.

The flip side is that they weren't as gaudily decorated and TV-set-looking.

London's cast was an odd one, in that it was a very harmonious group, but the seven didn't do a lot together, except for the obligatory field trip episode. Mike and Jay, the American boys, spent a lot of time lying around and taking about nothing. Jacinda and Sharon had their frenemy dynamic. There weren't a lot of sparks that season, in a good or a bad way. It was scattered. After San Francisco's dramatic house meetings, it was very different. I'm sure that had a lot to do with the group job project becoming part of the formula in the next season.

[Tatum]

The only real conflict I remember was that Neil didn't like Mike, because he thought he was a stereotypical annoying American, but the recapper pointed out that Neil was pretentious and sanctimonious and often got on people's nerves as well. In the book, Jay referenced some kind of flare up between Kat and Neil, but I never saw it so don't know what that was about.

 

I think a single episode reunion might get some viewers, but a multi episode season of Homecoming for the London cast would probably be really short on storylines.