TRL has made its long-awaited return to MTV.
The premiere of Total Request Live, or TRL, was poised to be epic, with appearances from Ed Sheeran and Migos, live performances and an enormous crowd in the middle of Times Square. It was a spectacle, no doubt. Just not the kind fans were hoping for.
It wasn’t good. TRL’s premiere was plagued by technical difficulties, awkward interactions, and an overall lack of cohesion. The show was a hot mess and despite a few fun callbacks to the original series, it felt like a shell of its former self.
Nearly a decade ago, then-host Carson Daly signed off for the final time on the original TRL with the help of stars like Beyonce, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake and more. The MTV programming block broadcasted daily from Times Square that helped launch the careers of numerous celebrities from the ‘90s and 2000s was over — until now.
Instead, fans were “treated” to DJ Khaled, looking like a lemon clad in a bright yellow jumpsuit, performing his usual, unfunny shtick, followed by a performance from Migos riddled with so many bleeps that it felt like a Jersey Shore episode.
Inside the studio, things didn’t get much better.
Unlike the original TRL, the new incarnation features a panel of rotating hosts instead of a single host. The premiere episode featured DC Young Fly, a young rapper/comedian from Atlanta who has made appearances on Wild ‘n Out.
What made the original TRL so much fun was watching celebrities answer silly questions and interact with the their fans. Interviewing Ed Sheeran and Migos would save the show, right? Wrong.
I’ll give MTV some props for bringing in two of the biggest names in music right now, but Sheeran and Migos were the wrong artists for the premiere. For as brilliant a musician as he is, Ed Sheeran has the charisma of an unsharpened pencil, and he was clearly upstaged by the bigger personalities around him. At least his performance was decent.
Migos wasn’t much better. It was abundantly clear that they couldn’t care less about being there, evident by their lackluster performance and unenergetic interview towards the end of the show.
There were some fun callbacks to the original TRL dotted throughout the episode. Watching DC Young Fly playing games with the celebrities was amusing to watch and seeing crazy fans outside of MTV studios begging to meet their favorite artists was weirdly nostalgic. Moments like these are what made the original show fun, and what this incarnation woefully lacked.
Fans shouldn’t panic, though; It was only episode #1. Maybe MTV just needs a few days or weeks to iron out the show’s kinks.
Or maybe the new TRL incarnation is really that bad. Let’s hope it's the former.
