‘TRL’ Is Back on MTV, but Undone by the InternetBy JON CARAMANICA
OCT. 25, 2017
Ed Sheeran performed on the premiere of the revamped “TRL” on MTV. Credit Bennett Raglin/Mtv
Even though it’s been on the air for less than a month, the reboot of “TRL” on MTV already has a few signature moves.
There is the bumbling repetition of interview questions, because no one seems to be able to hear anything over the screaming audience members. There is the smoke that engulfs guests as they enter, and that in a few cases has left them disoriented. And there is the occasional paternal pat on the shoulder the guests give the hosts, a gesture of dominance and control, the sort of thing an elder does to let the youth know to turn it down a notch.
The seams are visible, and frayed, on “TRL,” which is currently in its fourth week and no steadier than it was in its first. In its initial incarnation, which ran from 1998 to 2008, “TRL” — originally “Total Request Live” — was the essential countdown show of the teen-pop era. It took place after school and often filled the streets of Times Square with shrieking teenagers.
But that was when the phone screen was less enticing than the television screen, when music was closer to the heart of MTV’s mission.
The hosts of the new “TRL”: Matt Rife, Tamara Dhia and DC Young Fly. Credit Bennett Raglin/Getty Images, via MTV
The “TRL” of 2017 is less a coherent show than a series of loosely threaded distractions. Each episode is an hour but feels like two. It is preoccupied with viral moments but creates none of its own, or barely anything even worth a GIF. (One exception: the recent sketch that found DJ Khaled break dancing and dropping to the floor for a backspin.)
TRL ✔@trl
soooo this just happened
djkhaled #TRL
11:44 AM - Oct 18, 2017
22 22 Replies 145 145 Retweets 567 567 likes
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The fact that the internet has leached attention and relevance away from television is only part of what’s befuddling this show — plenty of television is premised on digesting and commenting on things that happen online. But those shows — say, “Desus & Mero,” or even late-night talk-show monologues — specialize in personalities and commentary. “TRL” is a mishmash and has the additional problem of trying to build a tentpole television series out of the component parts of internet personalities, who are generally poorly suited to the task.
That’s true of the musical guests, many of whom found fame online and aren’t kiln-fired in the glare of camera lights. An interview with the young rap star Lil Uzi Vert elicited about a couple dozen words from him. Playboi Carti looked somnolent during his performance. When actual famous people, like Fifth Harmony, Ed Sheeran or Pitbull, showed up, their professionalism was almost disruptive. On the episode when Jhené Aiko spoke of keeping a journal after the death of her brother, it was as if the channel had flipped.
Two of the show’s hosts got their breaks online: DC Young Fly was a comedy star on Vine, and Tamara Dhia spoofed the Kardashians and race relations in online videos. The third, Matt Rife, is a comedian.
Dressed in prohibitively expensive streetwear, they are an odd grouping. DC Young Fly is unnervingly antic; he’s built like one of those inflated tube men that flap outside of car dealerships, and moves like one, too. Roughly once an episode, Mr. Rife blurts out an off-color remark that makes his co-hosts wince — talking about hot naked yoga to Noah Cyrus, who is 17, or joking about R. Kelly or Bill Cosby. Both men awkwardly flirt with female guests. Neither seems particularly interested in music: DC Young Fly mispronounced Dua Lipa, and Mr. Rife fumbled A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. (This week, without explanation, Mr. Rife missed two shows, and DC Young Fly, one.)
Over the first three weeks, you could slowly sense Ms. Dhia wresting some semblance of control. She is the most convincing as a host, even though she often appears drained by the spectacle around her, as if she were an elementary schoolteacher watching the class descend into chaos.
And there is plenty of that. Each episode is crammed tight: appearances from actors and actresses from teen-friendly TV shows; dull skits featuring upstreamed social media personalities like the Dolan Twins, Gabbie Hanna and Liza Koshy (whose loud shenanigans make more sense in the tight confines of online video); games in which audience members compete for cash, including one where a young woman took a pie to the face. (Cue Mr. Rife: “There’s way grosser ways to earn money for college, trust me.”)
Unforced errors abound, including oodles of technical hiccups: sloppy camerawork, dead air, missed cues. Often, guests seem caught off guard by what they’re asked, and sometimes the hosts seem unprepared, like when DC Young Fly thought meme was pronounced “me me.” There are also moments of poor judgment, as when a schoolteacher was brought on to judge a sketch, and after DC Young Fly lost, he pointed out that the teacher — who probably doesn’t have the wardrobe budget of a TV host — still had the tag on her jacket.
At times, “TRL” evinces a political and social consciousness. The hosts freely insult President Trump, perhaps a response to a backlash-generating interview given by the showrunner, Albert Lewitinn, in which he said “we would welcome” Mr. Trump on the show.
And there is music: a meaningless weekly countdown drawn from songs — nepotistic or crassly promotional or just plain random — picked by the week’s guests; absurdly softball interviews that make Damien Fahey look like Mike Wallace; and performances that are often overlaid with visual effects to distract from their plainness. At least Lil Uzi Vert jumped on stuff.
But the musical guests have been inconsistent, a mélange of once-weres and not-quite-yets, a reflection of how little sway MTV currently has with the music industry. Cardi B recently topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” for three weeks. But while she’s been mentioned on about half of the show’s episodes thus far — including a sketch featuring a birthday cake with her image on it — she has not appeared yet. (Yet a 6-year-old girl who went viral online for rapping the song has.)
On the plus side, that means more opportunity for young artists like the impressive and almost impossibly professional new boy band PrettyMuch, which looks and sounds like a holdover from the peak “TRL” era, and Billie Eilish, who appeared in her interview to be a promising pop dissident, at least up until she began singing, or lip syncing.
Still, the show looks slick, even if the gap between the gloss of the set and the people occupying it is vast. But waiting for everyone to become polished enough to look at home there is likely a waste of time. Maybe the solution is to go the other direction and turn “TRL” into something more anarchic and less predictable. Forget trying to clean up the internet for television — let the internet run wild, and pray that the cameras can keep up.
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/arts/music/trl-total-request-live-mtv.html