Ellen Gray: MTV's old reliable 'Real World' is back for 24th season

SO MUCH television, so little time:

* MTV's "The Real World: New Orleans," Season 24 of the great-grandaddy of ant-farm TV, premieres at 10 tonight, and for those who like someone local to root for - not that there are prizes involved - I can offer you Ashlee Feldman, 23, of Collingswood, N.J.

Ashlee, who's first identified as being from Boston - where she went to Northeastern on a Division 1 basketball scholarship - clears up the confusion as she takes over the wheel from one of her new housemates.

"You should be nervous - I'm from New Jersey," she tells him.

Chances are, he'd have been nervous enough thinking of her as a Boston driver.

* For those who prefer their "reality" to actually resemble reality, ABC's "Boston Med" continues tomorrow (10 p.m., Channel 6) with a nail-biter of an episode in which a soldier races home from Iraq to be there for the birth of his child, knowing the baby will be needing heart surgery almost immediately.

* July 8 not only marks the Season 12 launch of CBS' "Big Brother," but the beginning of my 11th consecutive season of not watching the show, which was required viewing in its first summer only because of the antics of Philadelphia's own Will "Mega" Collins, who earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first person ever evicted from the U.S. "Big Brother" house.

Let's just say I followed "Mega" out the door - and I've never looked back.

But, hey, if you're one of the viewers whose more regular tune-ins have kept "Big Brother" alive all these years, you might or might not care that CBS yesterday announced yet another twist in the show's tired format: a designated saboteur.

"In a series first, one contestant will enter the 'Big Brother' house with one goal: to secretly wreak havoc on their fellow contestants," declares a network press release.

Subject-verb disagreements aside, isn't this pretty much what happens every summer?

* So how much do you love Hulu?

Because the other shoe finally dropped yesterday as Hulu.com announced the launch of a $9.99/month subscription service called Hulu Plus that will allow users to stream TV shows and movies in HD not only to computers but to some phones, tablets and to certain TVs and devices connected to them.

Oh, and you'll still see the commercials.

As it did with its original start-up, the site's beginning with an invitation-only model - to "ensure the highest quality experience for each user and to responsibly scale the service over time." Oh, and because nothing whets the appetite of early adopters like the illusion of exclusivity. (Feeling needy? Beg to be invited at www.hulu.com/plus.)

Even if you're not among those first chosen to pay a monthly fee to yet another content provider, you're not necessarily out of luck.

"During this preview period consumers are welcome to download a free Hulu Plus application to the iPad, iPhone 3GS and 4, and third-generation iPod Touch, and other supported devices to test the experience with a limited selection of free episodes and clips," says Hulu.

App-aholic that I am, I immediately installed it on my iPhone 3GS, where I found the free selection indeed very limited, and the picture - over a 3G network - surprisingly sharp.

Will I sign up? With a Slingbox and a Netflix subscription already, I'm inclined, for once, to wait and see - at least until I've had a chance to compare Hulu Plus with the Netflix for iPhone app that's reportedly on its way.

* Betty White's "Hot in Cleveland" character will be seeing a younger man in tonight's episode (10 p.m., TV Land): Carl Reiner.

According to Wikipedia, which I use to keep track of the birthdays of people who weren't expecting cards from me, anyway, White turned 88 in January, while Reiner wasn't 88 until March.

* TLC may be wandering into HBO territory soon, with a new six-part series called "Strange Sex," which premieres at 10 p.m. July 18 and promises to look at "mysterious conditions, unusual fetishes and the kinky science behind sexual attraction."

Me, I think TLC has some fetishes of its own - little people, large families and baked goods, to name a few - which could be the explanation for its July 11 special, "The Bakery Bunch," in which "Jennifer and Dirk Williams try to manage the chaos of raising 4-year-old triplet boys while running a small family bakery in Fullerton, Calif. . . . But with one boy going into surgery, the bakery beyond its maximum capacity and time pulling them in every direction, Jennifer and Dirk's relationship is put to the test."

The only things missing here? Tattooed toddlers in tiaras, mixing up cakes while saying yes to the dress. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com or join a live Web chat at noon tomorrow: go.philly.com/tvchat.