TheHills-related stories
Posted Jun 11th 2009 3:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, The Amazing Race, American Idol, Survivor, Big Brother (US), Dancing With The Stars, Celebreality
Considering how prevalent reality television is these days, it's got to be a pretty daunting task to try and put together a comprehensive list of the best and worst of all time. But
Entertainment Weekly thinks they've done just that. They've compiled the
top 20 reality shows of all time, but also the
ten worst reality shows of all time. All in all, they did a pretty damned good job.
I completely agree with the top six, but they lose me with
Jackass at number seven. I have never understood the appeal of filming morons doing stupid things on purpose just to be stupid. But there were some shows missing from the list completely, like
Little People Big World, So You Think You Can Dance and
Beauty and the Geek. Surely those shows are better than
The Hills and
The Real Housewives of Sesame Street, or whatever franchise they're spinning now.
Continue reading EW declares the all-time best and worst of reality television
Posted Jun 8th 2009 8:17AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Celebrities
It's a dream come true for everybody like myself that utterly, utterly hates reality television. Heidi Pratt had to be rushed to the hospital for being
"tortured" on the reality television show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here.
First, who decided that Spencer and Heidi Pratt would be called "Speidi?" It sounds like the nickname for Spider-Man, only misspelled. Most likely it's the working of a really bad publicist who wants them to be the next "Brangelina" or "Bennifer" or something like that.
Second, given the problems the couple has already had with NBC regarding this show (like
quitting and then coming back), this sounds like a ploy to not actually do anything while collecting a paycheck (something they got ample practice with in
The Hills).
I would also like to add that it's probably even worse torture for the viewer to simply watch them on television than anything NBC put Heidi through.
Posted Jan 27th 2009 12:06PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Industry, Programming, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals
MTV has renewed The City (a spin-off of
The Hills) and
Daddy's Girls ( a spin-off of
Run's House). It also greenlit
Teen Cribs, whose January special doubled their ratings.
I could go off on another rant about how MTV has long stopped being about music and has since become more like Media-Whore Television, but it seems redundant at this stage.
As someone who mostly watches scripted television either in the comedy or sci-fi genres, I'm wondering what the appeal of these shows are. I can only guess there is some degree of schadenfreude to watching these rich, attention-seeking fools make jackasses of themselves.
I do blame MTV for the reality show genre since they pioneered it with
The Real World. It's become such a subculture that it has
even spawned classes. But I can't blame them for the type of reality show they promote nowadays because they're just trying to appeal to their key demographic, the "I-want-it-all-and-I-want-it-now" generation
Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:03PM by Kelly Woo
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Celebrities
Do you loathe
The Hills? Well, you're not alone. Even Oscar-winning actresses have a hate on for the hit MTV reality series.
Charlize Theron told
MTV News she didn't understand why the show is so popular. "Why is it so big? It's about nothing!" she wondered. "
The Hills is about nothing. I think the girls are beautiful and when they cry their mascara runs and that's real, but I don't get it!"
And she's not the only celebrity who's befuddled by
The Hills phenomenon, either. Singer
Juliana Hatfield blogged, "I hate the fact that I know Heidi Montag's name; that I know who she is; that she takes up any space at all in my consciousness."
Continue reading Everybody hates The Hills
Posted Jul 1st 2008 4:39PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Celebrities
It looks like Heidi Montag from
The Hills has made the same mistake as
legendary musician John Lennon:
she compared herself to Jesus. Of course, that's where the Beatles analogy stops. Unlike the cast of
The Hills, Lennon actually had talent.
It began when she was accused of spreading rumors about an alleged sex tape of Lauren, another cast member. "I don't even want to talk about that. There were rumors about a sex tape, but I had nothing to do with that. God knows the truth in all of this, and at the end of the day, that is the only thing that matters. Jesus was persecuted, and I'm going to get persecuted, ya know? But it doesn't matter to me," said Montag.
Whoa. Right up there with
never getting involved in a land war in Asia is comparing yourself to Jesus in any capacity in an interview. Given the current social climate and her laughable role in it, Heidi Montag will probably not be persecuted for her statements. Which is quite different than the situation Jesus found himself in.
Posted Jun 27th 2008 6:07PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Reality-Free
I'm one of the many people who laments the
"channel drift" that has affected MTV. A network that started out as, well, "music television" has clearly become "anything but music television." There's even a graph now on GraphJam the depicts how
The Real World caused the downfall of MTV. The graph shows how the airtime for music videos has decreased as
The Real World grew in popularity. Perhaps it should also measure how the cast of
The Real World became more attractive and subsequently less intelligent.
The graph posits that by 2010 music videos will be nonexistent on the channel. Also, interesting is the rise of what the graph calls simply "other crap" that coincides with the rise of shows like
The Real World and
Road Rules. I assume "other crap" refers to shows like
The Hills,
My Super Sweet Sixteen, and
Made -- shows that have replaced music videos in primetime (and replaced music videos with their incessant reruns in daytime).
Continue reading Proof that The Real World caused the downfall of MTV
Posted Jun 27th 2008 1:41PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Big Brother (US), Hell's Kitchen
As an intro to my article about The New York Reality TV School, I've asked Red from
The Shawshank Redemption to narrate my opening paragraph:
I wish I could tell you that the New York Reality TV School fought the good fight, and that the students in attendance were not a collection of mostly desperate people whose desire for fame burned more strongly than their sense of dignity. I wish I could tell you that, but the entertainment industry is no fairy-tale world. Thanks Red. Now, if you, the reader, would be so kind as to click through to the article, it would mean a lot to me. Not because I get paid more for click-throughs (I don't; AOL pays me a flat rate of 60 cents plus a pound of corn husks for every post I make, regardless of the number of clicks), but because I spent
three hours attending the inaugural class of the NYRTV school last Saturday. I just couldn't take it if the end result of that is an article no one reads...
Continue reading My day at the first school in the world dedicated to art of appearing on reality TV shows. (Yes, this actually exists)
Posted Jun 18th 2008 6:43PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Weeds, Reality-Free
Weeds began it's fourth season Monday night on Showtime and showrunner
Jenji Kohan told E! Online that she's thinking about doing a Weeds spin-off. The possible spin-off would focus on Conrad's story and take place in a pot club. Kohan explains that it was time to split up Nancy and Conrad but she still felt like Conrad's story was compelling: "I love those characters; I just think those relationships wore themselves out, and I wanted to be true to where the characters were. Truthfully, Heylia and Nancy had nothing more to say to each other. Conrad and Nancy weren't going to be the loves of each other's lives, so it was time to move on."
As for the style of the spin-off, Jenji Kohan has a good idea of what she wants the show to look like. "I'd shoot it sort of fake reality-show style. It could be pretty like
The Hills!," she says. While
The Hills is indeed a "pretty" show, I think comparing the
Weeds spin-off to
The Hills is a downgrade for me. I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen.
Posted Jun 17th 2008 11:26AM by Jay Black
Filed under: Video, Talk Show, Reality-Free
You talkin' about my hair? Well, all right -- What is that? A swim cap?One of the greatest all-time moments of my senior year of high school was watching David Letterman completely dismantle Madonna. She came on with the idea that she was going to set the agenda and really give Dave the business; I guess the sycophantic dancers in Madonna's pre-show prayer circle told her that
she was really funny. Anyway, if you remember, she went toe to toe with the big guy and, to quote a phrase, she awoke a sleeping giant.
Letterman's cultural cache might be waning a bit --
he was beaten by Nightline in the ratings recently -- but his wit is still with him. Further, as the following clip with hair-product enthusiast Spencer Pratt will show, he can still seethe with barely controlled rage at our culture's propensity to elevate idiots to places of prominence. The video after the jump...
Continue reading Watch David Letterman open an old-school can of snark on The Hills' Spencer Pratt - VIDEOS
Posted Jun 10th 2008 9:02AM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Super Skank Wednesday
Lauren Conrad is like the Flavor Flav of MTV. That statement probably needs some explanation. Much like Flav's stardom has spawned spin-off after spin-off (with spin-offs of the spin-offs), LC is shining her light on fellow
Hills cast members. First, I reported that
Whitney Port is getting her own show and now...
The Hills co-star
Brody Jenner is getting his own spin-off called Bromance. The show, brainchild of Ryan Seacrest's company (thanks Seacrest), is a competition where regular guys come to Hollywood for a chance to be in...get this...Brody's entourage. MTV Senior VP of Series Development Liz Gateley says, "Brody is the perfect fit for this concept; he is the type of guy everyone wants to hang out with."
But wait, there's more. In each episode's elimination ceremony, the guys will gather in a hot tub for the news. Furthermore, similar to
Rock of Love and
Flavor of Love, the guys will participate in various competitions (i.e. skydiving and dealing with the paparazzi), go on group dates, and be rewarded with alone time with Brody.
Posted Jun 8th 2008 8:56PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, News and Gossip
Here's what's going on with MTV's resident morons this week...
Whitney Port is getting
her own show. I bet you
the nipple slip awhile ago sealed the deal. According to Us Weekly,
The Hills star will be working bicoastally for a fashion PR firm called People's Revolution. Now, she'll be involved in hijinx on both coasts. Apparently, in New York, Whitney will befriend socialite
Olivia Palermo.
Heidi and Spencer have made three million in two years of off "their work as douchebags" according to
VH1. And no, the three million is not their combined salaries from
The Hills. The couple just shamelessly sells out: club appearances, clothing lines, photo ops. I love that VH1 used the phrase "their work as douchebags." It's so true.
And here's the
sneak peek of season 4 of
The Hills coming this August. Lauren will find a new guy. Audrina and Lo will fight over LC's affections. And Stephanie will make the awful decision to invite LC and Heidi and Spencer to her birthday party.
Posted Jun 6th 2008 11:59PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Awards, TV Squad Awards, Celebreality
Like a lot of my TV Squad assignments, I went into this one under the belief that it would be a hoot. I figured that unreal reality shows would have a high camp value and I could enjoy them the same way that I enjoy
The Last Dragon.
Here's what I learned: Gene Simmons... Bruce Leroy you are
not. The next time I refer to something as a potential "hoot", I've given my wife permission to beat me unconscious with a shovel. A severe beating would be less painful than watching another minute of our nominee shows.
That said, I did enjoy the process of figuring out which show would "win" this award. After careful consideration of the words of my wizened TV Squad colleagues and the input of our enlightened readership, we have finally found our winner.
Continue reading The Reality Shows Have Writers!? Award: Winner - VIDEO
Posted May 30th 2008 10:02AM by Jay Black
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Awards, TV Squad Awards
There's a bit by Patton Oswalt on his brain-meltingly good comedy album
Feeling Kind of Patton regarding reality television. The short version: if we keep making reality shows, we will eventually run out of reality to film. (Believe me, the short version isn't even in the ballpark of how funny the bit is; go
buy this album immediately).
Like Arthur C. Clarke's predictions of geostationary satellites and floating man-god fetuses, Oswalt's vision of a reality-free future is eerily accurate. While our physical space hasn't quite been eaten by a giant white wave yet, the signs of reality's destruction are as obvious as the motivations behind Tila Tequila's bisexuality. Most glaring? The very words "reality television" connote an unreal experience.
After careful consideration, we at TV Squad, along with your input, have winnowed down the hundreds of possible candidates for "most unreal reality show" to these five...
Continue reading The Reality Shows Have Writers!? Award Nominees
Posted May 21st 2008 12:02PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Super Skank Wednesday
Welcome to
Super Skank Wednesday. This is where I celebrate the awesomely skanky people on the following shows:
Rock of Love,
Flavor of Love,
I Love New York (or whatever show Tiffany Pollard is making next),
The Surreal Life, and
Miss Rap Supreme.
After the jump, check out my tribute to Flavor Flav, my thoughts on
Miss Rap Supreme and
The Bad Girls Club, and other skankalicious goings on. (By the way, I won't be talking about Heather Chadwell. I just thought you guys deserved a treat.)
Happy Super Skank Wednesday!Continue reading Super Skank Wednesday: A tribute to Flav & more miscellany -- VIDEOS
Posted May 13th 2008 9:20AM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Interviews, Celebrities
Okay, let's get this out of the way first. No, Heidi wasn't there. No, Spencer wasn't there. Yes, that's totally their style. And yes, I was kind of bummed out.
Speaking of bummed out, it was freezing in Beverly Hills last night. MTV rented the outside of this swanky mansion but here's the catch, nothing was going on
inside. So, the press had to freeze for three hours while we waited to talk to the stars of
The Hills. Also, the port-o-potties MTV set up for us were super classy. Come on! There had to be at least fifteen bathrooms in that house.
For what happened at the live red carpet event before the big season finale, read on past the jump. I got to talk to Chiara Kramer, "Lo" Bosworth, and Stephanie Pratt.
Continue reading OMG from the red carpet: The Hills live season finale
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_thumbnail.jpg "Chiara")
_thumbnail.jpg "Stephanie")
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