Them thar Hills

Have you seen MTV's The Hills? It's a confusing experience to watch a reality show like this, because the editing and production values are so silky, the storylines feel so scripted and the music so cleverly punctuates the action. It's as if a Gen Y drama along the lines of The O.C. hooked up for a tawdry night with Real World. (Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the executive producer's actual pitch line.)

I resisted being pulled in by the show's glossy undertow until recently, but now I'm actually enjoying spoofs of it (click embedded video above, produced by Judd Apatow), as well as reading hilarious blog recaps over at JustinBobby.com and catching up on old episodes online at MTV.com.

There is something simultaneously irritating and entertaining about The Hills. The people are so pretty, pampered and purposeless, I want to tie them to a Pilates machine and toss them into the Malibu surf. Yet their superficial stupor is strangely soothing. Listening to their inane conversations is like slipping into a spa bath with FrouFrou on the stereo and honeysuckle-scented Diptyque candles burning all about.

It's so L.A. to say it, but I do have a personal connection to the show. My friend K-girl's band The By and By had a song featured on this episode of The Hills. If you click that last link, you'll get a good feeling for the strange spell the show casts and get to hear my friend's song "Undertow" in the scene transition at the end of the clip. And after viewing the clip, I gotta say: Could Trumpette-lookalike Whitney be any more fake? And doesn't Lauren look like a 21st century Marcia Brady? I know, riiiight?