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"Five guys are fixin' to "earn the chance of a lifetime." Can you even stand it? The excitement! The glory! The chance at absolutely no fame? What I love best about Becoming is remembering that everybody who's on this show sent in an audition tape requesting this moment. This guy on this show today? He sent in a tape begging to become Jacob. You think about what kind of person that is.
We start at "Third Street Dance," where we see ten guys sitting and waiting. I guess these are the finalists. Actually, there are probably only ten guys in the world who would be willing to pretend to be O-Town, and five of them are actually in O-Town, so the process of elimination is at work here. They pull five out of the room and have them lip-synch and dance to "We Fit Together" in a dance studio. So much for re-creating the feeling of Making the Band. These five kids are our O-Town boys. One of them is dressed like a female stripper. He's in a Playboy tank top that's Bedazzled, and a red bandanna. The guy who wants to be Trevor is easily thirty-three years old. When the song stops, the immediate First Aid that MTV gives us is Stone Temple Pilots' "Interstate Love Song" playing quietly in the background. I can almost tune out all the other crap that's going on. The man playing the role of "Auditioner" asks the boys if it felt good standing together attempting to dance while they pretended to sing. The boys thought it felt totally awesome. They find out that they're going to become O-Town. They leap into each other's arms as Weiland sings just a bit louder for me. One of the boys falls to the floor as the other three clutch and celebrate in a way that isn't even slightly gay. These boys are cheering like they won something. What did they win, exactly? And was there competition?
Our Ashley is named Greg. He's from Rumel High, Louisiana, but it also says he's a "Graduate." Whatever that means. Oh, I think that means he's old. No longer in high school. Or in Louisiana does that mean he's fourteen?
Michael is our Erik-Michael. Wow! They totally share half a name! Woo! He attends the Dramatic Arts Academy in California. He's a freshman. Oh, my God. He totally is fourteen. This isn't fair to any young boy. I don't care how much he thinks Erik is his boyfriend, this is going to be so embarrassing to him when he's eighteen and wants to date a real man.
Joseph is a sophomore from Central High in Texas. Y'all know which high school, right? That's so specific. Anyway, he's becoming Dan. He's a child. This is so unfair to these boys.
Adam, a freshman from the Dramatic Arts Academy in California, has the unfortunate fate of becoming Jacob. And how sad is it that they couldn't find five guys who wanted to become O-Town, so they had to pick five guys from the same school and pretend that three of them were from somewhere not-too-specific so we couldn't tell right away? And none of them is a day over fourteen, despite the deceptive facial hair.