Last week, I started watching a new reality show - Enrollment Frenzy"" - where five strangers at one university grapple with one incredibly inconvenient timetable. The prize: getting the classes you need to graduate.
The five students - Rosie, Lilah, Casco, Coby and Jake - thrust into this course-choosing mania together, seemed to hit it off really well at first.
Lilah had a crush on Jake, but Jake had a crush on her best friend Rosie who had a crush on Casco who had a crush on Coby, but swore he was straight.
But then the second episode premiered with the incestuous bunch receiving Enrollment E-mails, assigning them individual enrollment times. That's when the backstabbing began.
""We designed enrollment as a test of character,"" said the advisor, who oversees the show. ""Who has the inner strength to turn on all of their friends in the name of self-interest? Who copes with their classes filling up by drinking themselves into a coma, and who will chuck their laptop at the nearest life form?""
While the cast is told that the advisor is there to assist with registration, he actually works behind the scenes to further complicate the process by unplugging the internet during enrollment appointments, adding and subtracting classes from the timetable at random and replacing the Student Center with angry clown porn for ten minutes every half hour.
Rosie's appointment time came first. Lilah, her BFF, asked Rosie to hold a class for her since her enrollment time was the last of the group. But Rosie had to say no because she was already at 18 credits - she was trying to choose between ""Deconstructionist Political Modernization in a Post-Existential Platonic Society"" and ""Modernizing a Political Deconstructionist Plato in an Existentialistic Manner.""
Overwhelmed with guilt, Rosie promised to sleep with Coby to get his password and hold Lilah's ""No One Loves You and That's Why You Always Register After Everyone Else"" (Sucks to be You 433) course.
""I slept with Coby because I probably would have anyway,"" Rosie said in the confession room. ""I have really low self-esteem so I tend to sleep with anyone who asks me. Plus, it's really, really good for my reality TV career.""
But Coby was too quick for her. Having overheard Rosie and Lilah's conversation, he slept with Casco first, stole his password and passed it onto Rosie as his own.
""You gotta do what you gotta do to graduate,"" Coby said of his conniving antics. ""You're never going to get into the right classes without sleeping with some people you wouldn't otherwise. I learned that from VH1.""
Jake kept to himself through most of the process.
""No one understands the dark abyss that consumes my life,"" he said. ""So I don't think the others were interested in my classes. I enrolled in 'My Blood is a River of Feelings (Rich Kids Rebelling Against their Parents by Turning Emo 583),' 'My Body is a Jacket of Constraint (Self Loathing 322),' and bowling.""
Once all five students had registered for classes, the advisor arranged for a get-together to ""talk about schedules."" Jealousy-driven pandemonium ensued.
""I knew that if I got them together to compare their schedules, they'd realize they weren't actually content with their classes,"" the advisor said. ""This meeting was guaranteed to bring the most drama this network has seen since Pluto chose its replacement in 'Who Wants to be a Planet?'""
Coby and Casco immediately began fighting over the 8:52 comp lit slot, given the two were both enrolled in the 8:49 lecture. As Casco stabbed Coby, Jake sobbed quietly in the corner at the omission of bowling in the timetable. Rosie, afraid she was being outdone with all the blood on Casco and Coby's end of the room, began making out with Lilah.
The show ended with a memorial service for Coby, Rosie giving birth to her third child, Jake sacrificing a goat to Satan, Casco doing time and Lilah, the winner, graduating.
""Being on the show was an amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything,"" she said, showing off her diploma to the camera. ""Be sure to look for me next season in 'Living Law School!'""
If you'd like to audition for next season, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.
