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The Hills Effect, Reality TV Breaks The Fourth Wall To Full Effect

The producers of The Hills wrapped up their experiment in "reality" television last night with a nice twisted bow, as the final episode exposed for once and for all just how produced the show really was. Well done I say!

Captivating a core audience and capturing the zeitgeist of our fine nation for the better part of six seasons, the show catapulted a cast into the stratosphere of fame-mongering and redefined our vernacular if only for a short time (Speidi anyone?). And yes, it even attracted the likes of Mad TV.

The Times ran a nice piece on this today and judging from their previous glowing explanations of all the strum and drang of the various seasons, one can see why this particular show was able to leap to the fore of reality television in a way none had done before. Beautifully shot, the series (and off-shoot of the original Laguna Beach) introduced America to a "real-life" cast of Sex & The City netherworld ensconced in the hills of Los Angeles and gave us a glimpse behind the velvet rope of what it meant to immerse a bunch of twenty-something girls and their often narcissistic admirers into the glare of the real-time paparazzi.

But more than the misfit adventures and copious drinking that was exposed, we were wooed by the idea that this was indeed all very real. The fact is that very little of television aside from raw-news is ever "real" in the sense of what happens when you or I walk out our front doors. We don't have a camera crew following us, we don't have producers whispering in our ears, we don't have directors yelling CUT and we don't have PA's running around ensuring we don't sweat too much or our Frappacino's are appropriately chilled. Craft Services anyone? This was not real, but we loved it anyway.

As viewers, we were engaged by it all, and to that I say well done. Yes, there were lulls in the action to the point of questioning how long this could play out, but MTV and the producers pulled the plug in a way that was good-timing with a strong enough statement about what it was that we were all viewing to begin with.

It brings to the fore the idea of paid-placements on television (I'm in marketing) and branding as well. Were all those cars just really placed on the show, those chyron's of all the locations meant they were shooting for...free? Did they pay...for anything? Certainly many brands received a lot of exposure and several cast members and supporting cast were smart enough to spin the opportunity nicely. Certainly the "star' Lauren Conrad jumped ship earlier this year as any true star who saw the future should. Whitney Port is struggling to work out what it is her "brand" is, from fashion to Proactiv endorsements. The brilliantly banal Kelly Cutrone rode this horse to the best of her wicked capacity, certainly here is a woman for whom the camera isn't always kind but judging from my own personal experience, is a woman who controls her own destiny and is fair if not terribly politically correct. Good for her!

The City, a spinoff, suffers from character development in a way that only reality TV can highlight, the fact is if you watch it that all the editing in the world can't necessarily support the boringness of some of the fashionable people showcased there. That's sad considering how amazingly diverse this fine city really is. What works in LA doesn't necessarily translate well in New York, and the producers would do well to amp up their view of this fine city if they are renewed for another season, and it will take more than a pretty-in-pink attitude to do it.

Thank you MTV and show creator Adam Divelo for giving us a fun ride and a smart ending. What's up with Brody Jenner's eyes anyway? Surely there's been some work there...but alas perhaps some things are left unwritten....

See the video on Gawker TV's excellent POST

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