While you're in high school, there may be a complex of subcultures into which everyone gets categorized. But once you're out you can pretty much divide the world into two categories – the people who loved high school and the people who hated them, I mean, it.
TV Land
Justin "the pipsqueak," DeAnna "the popular girl," Rob "the stud" and Kirstin "the spoiled girl" flash back to their high school years.
In our reality-TV era, it was only a matter of time before some production company used a high school reunion as the thematic backdrop for a series. Of course, this being reality according to television, that means a reunion set in a fabulous beach house on Maui. And the Anytown, U.S.A. high school selected for High School Reunion's reunion is none other than J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson – perhaps you went there, or at least drove by it on your way to work this morning.
Though this is the debut edition of the show on the TV Land network, High School Reunion had three previous runs on the WB, including a season centered on the reunion of classmates from a Round Rock high school. Here's the latest instance of Texas' power of attraction when it comes to reality-TV casting calls – two out of four nationwide searches for schools to use as High School Reunion staging grounds have brought the show's producers to Texas. What is it about Texas and Texans that reality-TV producers can't resist?
"There's just something about Texas. You've got articulate, interesting people with outsized personalities," says Keith Cox, TV Land's executive vice president of original programming. "And they're also really good-looking, which, when you're casting a TV show, is important.
TV Land
This season's
High School Reunion cast members are all 1987 graduates of J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson.
"Also, what makes the show so authentic is that these are not wannabe actors. These are real people who want to go back to their real lives when the show is over. We went after them. They weren't sending their audition tapes to us."
These "real people" are a group of 15 graduates from the class of 1987, and the premise is that the series is reuniting them "for the first time in 20 years." As you quickly discover, reality being the malleable storytelling clay it is on television, that may be technically true. But the practical reality is that most of these people have been in contact – as friends, lovers and exes – since they graduated. Everybody is given a character tag based on who he or she was back in the day. So we meet Rob "the stud," Jason "the bully," DeAnna "the popular girl," Kirstin "the spoiled girl" and so on.
To the producers' credit, they don't really try to hide or even disguise the dramatic string-pulling. They just put it out there. So there's Kat "the lesbian" talking about wanting to give men another try. Cue Rob the stud taking her for a picnic on the beach after betting his buddies that he's going to kiss her. And as soon as Mike "the rebel" starts talking about how his former classmate and now ex-wife had an affair with his now ex-best friend, you can guess who the next mysterious arrivals will be. That's right, Lana "the drama queen" and Steve "the back-stabber."
This triangle is, unfortunately, the core dynamic of the show. Again and again, the show revisits Mike's anger, Lana's regret and frustration, and Steve's defiance and desire to make amends. It's just too juicy a situation for the producers to resist, but as the details are, finally, made clear – Mike and Lana were already divorced when she and Steve hooked up – all this present-day tension seems a little silly.
But that's what high school is all about, isn't? High-drama silliness. As you watch these grown men and women regress into their adolescent characters, you wonder how much of this is bad acting by a bunch of non-wannabe actors and how much is just the intractable pull of the past? Is Justin "the pipsqueak," who's grown up to be tall, dark and handsome, just playing his part for the cameras? Or is he really so swooningly flummoxed by DeAnna's flirtations that he doesn't see that the "popular girl" – who wouldn't give him the time of day in high school – has grown up to be a four-time-divorced and desperate woman?
Whichever it is, it's undeniable train-wreck TV entertainment. And the show does mix in moments that resonate with something surprisingly close to genuine feelings, particularly when Matt "the jock" discusses the recent death of his wife and the scene in which Jason "the bully" is confronted by one of his victims.
Best of all, it's not a competition. No one sings for stardom or eats a bug for money.
High School Reunion
Wedensday at 9 p.m. on TV Land
