Tommy Lee Goes to College - Season 1 (2005)

Originally Reviewed

Sunday April 30, 2006

What happens when you take an old school, bad boy, rock star and send him to a high quality, well known state university? You get Tommy Lee Goes To College, last summers breakout reality series/comedy of the year. While the season provided only six episodes it was by far the funniest and best thought out reality series I have seen. The basic premise of the show is to follow Tommy Lee around the University of Nebraska and see if he can survive a semester of college without failing all his classes and burning down the school. Needless to say while Tommy must be in his late 40's he still pretty much fits in well with the college crowd. 

The major highlights of the show follow Tommy as he gets ready for his classes and attempts to find a roommate, after knocking on many doors and receiving dazed looks of mostly confusion, Tommy meets Matt a pretty cool dude who seems to be a perfect match. Later, Tommy is introduced to his educational tutor the hot pre-med student, and blonde bomb-shell Natalie who probably ends up being more of a distraction in Tommy's tutoring sessions.

 

Tommy Lee tries out for the marching band as a drummer and experiences early morning practices and major irritation as he attempts to learn the entire drum routine in a week’s time. Not only is he stressed out but some of his band members seem to be a little upset with him just being there, although they soon put away their resentment and try to assist him in succeeding.

 

Tommy Lee goes out for a fraternity but ultimately gets pissed off when he is subjected to low and gross manual labor by having to clean up after a bunch of slobs. So he decides to do what any other rich and famous rock star would do, starts his own frat... The House of Lee. 

As finals begin to get closer Tommy begins to get very stressed out attempting to grasp all the material in such a short amount of time. He receives extra help from another very attractive girl in his chemistry class who offers to study with him. Tension begins to build when Natalie, the hot tutor, finds out about this other girl who obviously isn't making it easier for Tommy to learn, and when the two meet, watch out! Two hot tutors trying to help Tommy learn the material for his classes and all the while he couldn't be more confused.

I'm not a fan of "reality TV", but Tommy Lee Goes To College isn't your ordinary reality show it's definitely very entertaining, very well put together, and one of the few reality shows that doesn't revolve around staged fights and fake relationships. I was very impressed with the presentation of the show altogether, the filming, sound effects, graphics and narration were all very well done and made the show stand out as something unique and different.

 

How much of the show was real and how much was simply a setup is anyone's guess. I guarantee you that Tommy didn't luck out in getting quite possibly the hottest girl at the school as his tutor, that had to be a setup. Also I have to assume the people in charge of the show picked out some of the strangest teachers at the school to make things a little more interesting such academic advisor Professor Gay. And I doubt Tommy actually sit through a semester of classes considering the amount of books he purchased for the classes he supposedly took, and then at the end of the show he's only given grades for three classes when he supposedly took more, what happened to Professor Gay's class and the biology class?  So more than likely he didn't actually complete those courses, they were only thrown in for the added entertainment.

Overall Tommy Lee Goes To College is absolutely hilarious and well worth the watch, even if half the show is a setup it’s all done to entertain and that's exactly what it does. This is definitely well worth a rent to check out the six episodes and hopefully Tommy Lee will be back this summer for another session of college, because this guy is "bananas"! 

9/10