Rob Lowe Gives D.C. a Reality Check

While I'm guessing that Bravo's "Real Housewives of D.C." is going to break the reality-show curse on our nation's capital, I was still fascinated to read that the D.C. season of Bravo's "Top Chef" opened with the smallest audience since the first season in March 2006, and that "Real World" set in Washington was the lowest-rated season in the show's history. (This news comes as word broke that Rob Lowe has teamed up with a production company to launch "Potomac Fever," a reality series that will follow the adventures of young Washingtonians as they try to move up the ranks in the D.C. scene.)

I'd like to give Americans the "benefit" of the doubt and think that they associate Washington with politics so immediately lose interest in this city that anyone who's ever lived there is quite vibrant and fun (although I'd never want to move back there -- at this point it's New York or L.A. for me -- I'd still rank it as my third favorite U.S. city by a lot). But the entire time I lived there I found that most "non-coasters" couldn't even tell me what part of the nation Washington was located(!), so perhaps it's giving them too much credit to think they had preconceived notions about it.

In addition to the new show, Lowe is set to write a memoir ("Stories I Only Tell My Friends"), which, if it's anything like the sex tape he produced at Democratic Convention sex tape in the '80s, promises to be good stuff. (Let's hope this one is a little more in focus, though.)