I am – Hercules!!

A bunch of twentysomethings must live for five weeks as their ancestors did: no X-Box, no I-Pod, no V-chip! They have to listen to Bowie, Zeppelin, Elvis Costello and the Stones, because Britney, Justin and Christina weren’t even on the Mickey Mouse Club yet!!

The Boston Globe says:

… would have been a lot more engaging if MTV had pitched it at a deeper level involving the social mores and taboos of the time. As its 12 young reality contestants try to live as the country did in the 1970s, the show gets too caught up in the silliness of surfaces, dealing with issues no bigger than wearing short shorts, riding in bulky station wagons, and employing phrases such as ''Shake your booty." In other words, ''The '70s House" opts to be nothing more than a very old visual joke stretched out to series length. It's ''That '70s Show," with all the fondue and bell bottoms but without any of the characters. And it's PBS's ''The 1900 House" without any anthropological resonance. The idea of the show is that the contestant who can best adhere to the look and sound of the '70s will win gifts. … Oddly, the show is poorly cast. There aren't any instantly memorable characters, something MTV is usually too good at. The people who show up on ''The Real World" these days are so in-your-face and eager to be distinct, you wish they could be less vivid. But this particular group is a generic collection of lookers who can slip in and out of '70s clothes without much ado. …

The Boston Herald says:

… You almost can hear Ashton Kutcher yelling to MTV programmers, ``You've been punk'd!'' Why would MTV's core audience - born circa 1990 - care about the '70s? Drop them into PBS' ``Colonial House'' and no doubt you'd get the same result - complaints about bad hair, music and clothes. …

The Newark Star-Ledger says:

… Part of what makes MTV's new "The '70s House," which debuts tonight at 10:30, so much fun is the way it takes a dozen "Real World" wannabes (most of them clamoring to play The Dumb One) and puts them in an environment so artificial that they have no idea how to react. … by the time the kids are forced to play a public basketball game in retro tank tops and short shorts, it becomes clear that the producers don't know what to do with the concept besides a series of humiliating fashion shows. …

Newsday says:

… Expecting to appear on "The Real World," or "Road Rules," the kids are shocked to discover that they must immerse themselves in the music, food and fads of 30 years ago.…

10:30 p.m. Tuesday. MTV.

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Look! A fabulous new “Serenity” book co-edited by big-deal "Buffy"-"Firefly"-"Gilmore Girls" TV writer Jane Espenson. She introduces each of the essays, and the whole book besides: Finding Serenity : Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly