Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Surreal Life’ On VH1 and Paramount+, The Return Of The Show Where D-List Celebrities Live Together In A Big House

What do you remember most about The Surreal Life, which ran on The WB and VH1 between 2003 and 2006? The biggest thing we remember is that’s where Christopher Knight (best known as Peter Brady from The Brady Bunch) met his future ex-wife Adrianne Curry, spawning a Brady-themed reality sequel. We remember Flavor Flav being Flavor Flav, dating Brigitte Nielsen, and eventually launching a dating empire. A new revival of the series corrects that misconception, plus adds an interesting mixture of B-listers that viewers of a certain age know well and ones that they’ll have to ask their teenage kids about.

THE SURREAL LIFE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes from the original 2003-06 run of The Surreal Life, which started on The WB and moved to VH1 halfway through its run.

The Gist: In The Surreal Life, eight celebrities (yes, we’ll call them celebrities without the ironic quotes around the word) live in a big house and… well, that’s about it. The idea is that the group does some fun activities together, open up about their lives, and try to navigate the inevitable conflict of big personalities.

This return season takes place in a huge house in Mexico City (yes, really). The cast is a mix of the known, the somewhat known, and the notorious: Dennis Rodman, Malcolm In The Middle star Frankie Muniz, former WWE superstar CJ Perry, former Living Single star Kim Coles, reality star Tamar Braxton, YouTube makeup tutorial star Manny MUA, porn star Stormy Daniels, and singer August Alsina. If the last name sounds familiar-ish, it’s because he was involved with the “entanglement” with Jada Pinkett Smith that almost sank her marriage to Will Smith.

Seven of the eight celebs show up on the first day, get to know each other, go to an arena to dress up as their self-created Lucha Libre characters. Tamar, for instance, names herself “Carne Asada” because it’s the only Spanish she can pronounce. Muniz, owing to his small stature and neatness streak, names himself “El Pequeno Limpador”, or “The Tiny Cleaner.”

The next morning, the eighth celebrity — Stormy Daniels — shows up with her “haunted doll” that helps when she goes on her paranormal hunts. Alsina doesn’t want her energy in his room, the only one with an open bed, so he moves her mattress to the pool room. That night they have a dinner party where everyone plays “two truths and a lie” — except for the half-there Rodman, who thinks they’re playing Truth or Dare.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Surreal Life has always been a mixture of The Real World and Celebrity Big Brother, without the eliminations CBB has.

Our Take: Like most celebrity reality series, people may not recognize the celebrities participating in this resurrected version of The Surreal Life. As tuned into pop culture as we are, we were still only batting about .750. Even so, shows like this are about the mixing and clashing of big personalities rather than the celebrities themselves, and this new Surreal Life captures what made the original run so fun.

It’s pretty obvious who’s going to cause the most conflict: Dennis Rodman and Stormy Daniels. This isn’t the first reality rodeo for either of them. Rodman’s moodiness goes hand-and-hand with his outlandishness, even though he now claims he was wearing makeup and women’s clothes before everyone else, a claim we looked a bit sideways at. Stormy’s energy comes from the fact that she not only still has to talk about having sex with Donald Trump, or “the worst 90 seconds of my life,” as she said, but her belief in the paranormal, including that creepy doll.

They make Tamar Braxton, who’s usually the crap-stirrer on whatever show she’s in, seem tame. Alsina has an “above it all” air about him, but then again, we’d react to Stormy and her doll in a similar way that he did. Muniz is the most self-deprecating, and Manny MUA is the funniest. The fact that there are cracks being shown by the end of the episode indicates that not everyone will get along, which is what you want to see on this show. In fact, there’s a preview of Rodman leaving and then returning, which is always reality gold.

Sex and Skin: Besides scenes of Rodman walking around naked, with his junk blurred, there’s nothing.

Parting Shot: Rodman interrupts Alsina’s rambling response to Rodman’s question about what he sees himself doing in six months. Alsina points his fork at Rodman and says “will you let me answer your question?”

Sleeper Star: Even if you had no idea who Manny MUA was before this — we certainly didn’t — you’ll enjoy his observations of everyone else in the house, plus his inability to take things out of the fridge without dropping stuff.

Most Pilot-y Line: There was an extended segment where everyone talks about their morning routines. Snore.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Is The Surreal Life silly and contrived? Absolutely. But it’s supposed to be silly and contrived; that’s what made the original run so good. And the revival keeps that tradition going, with a good mix of B-list celebrities.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.