TV REVIEWS : Friction and High Jinks in Addictive ‘Real World’

If you find yourself getting hooked on “Beverly Hills, 90210” or “Melrose Place”--and we personally know of actual mature, functioning adults who thought they could sample just a little and then wasted away under the ravages of this very disease--beware the even more addictive qualities of MTV’s “The Real World.”

The second season of this “reality soap” kicks off extremely promisingly tonight at 10, ringing out the old “cast” and bringing in the new. And now more than ever, the show proves that truth is strangers in friction.

For those who might have spent the last year in the unreal world, the series’ premise is that MTV picks seven young adults from its target 18-25 demographic and throws them together in a loft for three months, taping almost every public and private moment. Kind of like “Sliver” in dorm hell.

The first half of tonight’s hourlong opener is devoted to a reunion of last year’s seven Manhattan-based lofties. Largely, they talk about what celebrities they’ve become and how kids on the street come up . . . and . . . ask . . . Oh, pardon us, we were nodding off for a second there. There’s a little bit of drama when Heather expresses resentment at having played second banana to the romantic tension of the Eric ‘n’ Julie show in the editing, but otherwise the get-together is kind of a yawner.

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But don’t fall asleep, because things get way more interesting in the show’s wild and woolly second half. There, three new cast members meet up and drive cross-country in an RV to our very own Venice, where they’ll share a beach pad with four others. Whereas MTV seemed to pick the first cast simply because they were cool and identifiable for young viewers, this time they’ve turned up the burner by choosing a gang of extroverts as different in style and ideology as humanly possible.

Dominic, 24, a too-hip, hard-drinking, spiky-haired Irish expatriate, meets Tami, 22, a black singer and AIDS care worker who (at least initially) appears the most grounded of the bunch. They drive to Kentucky to pick up--much to their chagrin--cowboy Jon, 18, a burgeoning country singer and full-blown fundamentalist.

. . . And wacky high jinks ensue!

Next week, having arrived at the Venice loft, these bickering three meet their roommates: a female deputy marshal, a loose stand-up comic, a fussy production assistant and a totally buff surfer dude who will eventually come out of the closet as a Young Republican. These are examples of incompatible species that might kill each other in the wild, but we’ll see how they fare tossed together under MTV’s manipulative microscope.

Coming soon: “Murder in Venice”? Let’s hope so, soap fans.