Real World

No contest: "The Real World" is better than the real world. But is this third installment better than "Real World 2" or the original "The Real World"?Expect that question to be debated endlessly following the debut tonight of the third season of MTV's unique blend of documentary and soap opera.The producers call the show -- which chronicles the lives of seven roommates during a year -- a "reality-based soap opera." Sarah Schlow of Baltimore says: "It's intriguing. You must watch it even though you hate it."

Before she signed on to a new life, it was scary how depressed she was. Her marriage was crumbling, and she was "seriously lonely." Then, one day, America Online slipped an introductory disk into her mailbox. Let's try it, urged her concerned teen-age son. And now, after untold hours of online communion, she is a new woman with a new name: LarkAngel. And she speaks of her cyber savior with grateful zeal."All of a sudden I realized I didn't have to be at home depressed and lonely. I could honestly tell you it changed my life," says Lark-Angel, 41, who like many in cyberspace uses only her screen name in the real world, partly for security reasons and partly because one of the charms of life online is having a secret identity.

For two hours, Maurice Crum's only concern across the practice field was tackling the player with the ball.Pads cracked so hard you thought the players in them would crumple like Beetle Bailey after a beating from Sarge. Survival and concentration. The real world is a million miles away.When the University of Miami football team had finally drilled itself out, Crum rested his helmet on the grass and related the concerns of every young father raising a child. In this case,Maurice Jr., age 4."

Producer Jonathan Murray wasn't trying to bring a new sense of realism to the screen or change viewers' expectations of television 12 years ago when he created a cable series for MTV called The Real World. Quite the contrary. Murray and his late partner, Mary-Ellis Bunim, just wanted to create a documentary series that folks under 30 would watch. Toward that end, they blended the spontaneity of documentaries with the artifice and conventions of network sitcoms and dramas. We wanted to "create something that would look great and had enough drama to keep kids hooked" through commercial breaks, Murray said.

If there is any lesson to come from the current season of 24, the hit Fox show about government agents working to thwart a terrorist attack, it is this: They have ways to make you talk. So far this season, a suspected terrorist was shot in the leg during an interrogation, an accused traitor was zapped in the neck with a stun gun, the son of the secretary of defense was subjected to sensory deprivation, an uncooperative executive was shocked with a live electric wire and a government agent pressed his thumb into the bullet wound of a woman connected to terrorists.

TRADITIONALLY, public high schools -- and many of their private counterparts -- have offered three year-long mathematics courses, usually in the same sequence: Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II.However, this arrangement tends to teach the subjects in a vacuum, adding to students' impressions that the subjects are unrelated to other types of math, much less to the "real world."Accordingly, a pilot mathematics program was launched in Howard County this past school year.One-third of the math students at Atholton, Hammond and Mount Hebron high schools have been enrolled in a three-year, ** integrated mathematics course, which includes numeric, algebraic and geometric concepts along with lessons in probability and statistics.

Wearing a suit, a tie and shiny loafers and clutching a briefcase, Kristofer Mickens is hardly what audiences have come to expect from an MTV "Real World" housemate.Still, the 23-year-old actor -- one of 662 "Real World" wannabes at the Inner Harbor Planet Hollywood yesterday auditioning to become a cast member for the eighth season of the Gen-X documentary -- was pretty sure he would make it."I'm not worried about that at all," he said, standing confidently upright at the front of the line.

It started with a simple premise that long-ago first season in New York: Take seven twentysomethings with diverse backgrounds, put them in a well-accoutered apartment in a cosmopolitan city, videotape their lives in pseudo-documentary style and condense the experience into 10 hours of TV programming. Call it "The Real World," set it to a slick soundtrack and broadcast it on MTV as a "true" Gen-X soap opera.For about three years, the idea worked. "The Real World" had drama. It had kids with real dreams and talent.

When Ty Ruff, a 22-year-old Baltimorean, heard that he'd be a castmate in "The Real World: D.C.," he was disappointed. The previous season had been filmed in Cancun, Mexico, and the one before that took place in Brooklyn, N.Y. Once he settled in, though, being in Dupont Circle "was like ... the other side of the world." Ruff moved into the house at 2100 S St. on July 2 with seven strangers, but the castmates, some of whom were just 5 years old when the original "The Real World" was broadcast in 1992, can't say much about the 23rd season of the show, which is scheduled to premiere at 10 p.m. Dec. 30 on MTV. Their tight-lipped spiels sound rehearsed, as each castmate chants the "live hard, play hard" mantra they say defines D.C. culture.

The real world is toilets that don't flush. The real world is apprehensively approaching a cockroach with a broom and a can of Raid. The real world is selling CDs to buy food.Unless, of course, you're on MTV's "The Real World."In that case, it's six months sharing a Barbie Dream House in a cosmopolitan paradise with seven sexy strangers.At 10 tonight, MTV presents the new flock of egos occupying this alternate reality, this time in Boston. It's season number six, following previous incarnations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Miami.