D.C. needs another reality show about as much as it needs another cupcakery, but apparently Rob Lowe is trying to one-up "The Real World."
The actor -- who once played a young adult dragged kicking and screaming from life as a Georgetown student -- is pitching "Potomac Fever," a reality show that follows young Washingtonians trying to establish themselves in D.C., The Washington Post reported.
Sound familiar, Brat Pack fans? We're guessing the cast will include a musician, a Hill staffer, an artist, a social worker with a trust fund, a cokehead and a couple of unemployable dreamer types.
D.C. may not be the right backdrop for reality, these days. Other than the long-running reality show that is the paparazzi-like media coverage of the federal government, real Washington isn't translating into good ratings lately.
The news comes less than two weeks after the D.C. season of Bravo's "Top Chef" opened with the smallest crowd since the first season in March 2006, and a few months after MTV's long-running "Real World" franchise limped out of Washington with the lowest-rated season in the show's history.
(The jury's still out, however, on TLC's six-episode series "D.C. Cupcakes," premiering in mid-July. And, of course, on "Real Housewives of D.C.," which debuts on Bravo in August -- though so far the newest edition has been largely buzz-less, save for the casting of the infamous alleged White House party crasher Michaele Salahi.)
But this will be a labor of love for Lowe. Last week, he told Variety he has an "affinity for the adventures of young Washingtonians."
He certainly is fictionally familiar with the lot. After leaving D.C. as saxophonist Billy Hicks in the mid-'80s, he returned several years ago to serve President Josiah Bartlet as Sam Seaborn in the West Wing.