Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County

I admit: I watch Laguna Beach. I'm not that ashamed to admit it, really. But what all viewers have to understand is that the show is made for fun. It's not a serious, mind-probing, makes-you-think-real-hard type of TV entertainment. It's something that's a guilty pleasure, a substitute when the reruns of Friends are getting boring.

While I do agree that the plot (and sub-plots) are weak, there is no doubt that many people can relate to this show. Sure, not all of us drive Range Rovers and max out Daddy's credit card every weekend, but we all have a tight-knit group of friends who are always there for you, and we all experience the terrors of growing up. So exactly what does Laguna Beach: The Real OC have to offer? Hmmm...

It's got a plot, love triangles, funny crushes, ditz talk, shopping, surfing, parties, drama, and beautiful views of the beach. It's got attractive cast members who seem real and wear hot clothes. It's got bitch fights, swearing, and kissing. Hey, to be honest, that's what most shows are about anyways.

So don't just snub off the show because it sounds idiotic. Actually watch it and you'll find that it's quite addictive. You'll get sucked into the drama, the love lives, and all the things that go on down in Laguna Beach. But then again...that's why it's called reality TV.

Laguna Beach is probably one of the greatest shows on MTV. It follows the lives of high school students living in the picture-perfect town of Laguna Beach, California. The show is filled with cat-fights, hook-ups, and just plain backstabbing and even more! the 1st season was hosted by Lauren Conrad (a.k.a LC). 1st season was mainly about the love triangle between LC, Kristen and Stephen. With other characters like Morgan, Christina, Trey and Lo. 2nd season is hosted by Kristen, she is dealing with the return of LC and Stephen and her friend's Jessica's boyfriend problems with Jason. Laguna Beach is definitely a great guilty pleasure and i would recommend it 2 anybody who loves reality TV filled with drama!

Chances are such that no one will read this post given the number of happy reviews that precede mine. Regardless, I would just like to say that, in my honest opinion, this is by far the worst television show I have ever seen. It isn't the production, but the content that sickens me. As if reality television wasn't bad enough, we are given a show where kids bicker over prom and dates and sunshine and farts. What makes matters worse is that thousands/tens of thousands(choose quantity based on current week's ratings) of people actually care. Go out and live your lives instead of watching spoiled kids ruin their own.

I place this show in the same league of "The Andy Milonakis Show." The only positive comment I have is that I now know to stay away from Laguna Beach when I travel south.

This has to be the show that's responsible for causing part of the world to think the US is the great Satan. No, not really, but it sure doesn't help. I mean, we must look really awful to those who watch stuff like this and take it as emblematic of US society.

One thing for sure, it is the most mindless and vapid, numbingly stupid garbage I've ever seen, but I have yet to see 'The Hills', it's spin-off. That promises even more, much more, of the same nothingness.

Things that ought to be important to anyone with any sense of humanity are absent here. Things that typically are important to those who think of themselves before humanity, such as career and money, are also absent. in fact, the most common denominator of the important life functions in this tripe of programming are in line with what a pre-neanderthal might think of as important, such as who's my next mate and how can I attract him or her.

Even pre-neanderthals have one up on these young people, as the former must find their own food and shelter. What kind of life is perpetual childhood, especially perpetual tween childhood? The answer is right here, and it will make you feel ashamed this piece of the 'vast wasteland' is presented by those who've come forth from our own American culture, and seem to lack any understanding of its significance in history.

Network: MTV; Genre: Reality/Drama; Content Rating: TV-PG (some language and suggested sex involving teens); Available: DVD; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 – 4);

Seasons Reviewed: 2 seasons

Any adult that voluntarily watches MTV's pseudo-reality series "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County" is going to get exactly what they expect. The show hones in on its target demographic and gives them exactly what they want in a glitzy package. For me to sit here high and mighty and decry MTV for feeding the ego of a handful of Orange County families - taking a group of spoiled in-crowd teenagers and turning them into basic cable TV stars for being everything that has made their life so easy up until that moment - would be irrelevant to the show's audience and its cynical producers.

Those corporate stooges here are creator Liz Gateley and developer Adam Davolla. "Laguna Beach" is trash. But it's hyper-stylized trash. Cameras capture events with angles impossible to have taken all at once and show is shaped into a such-as-it-is narrative structure. And there in lies the rub and, you might argue, the evil genius on MTV's part. The show falls in a surreal valley for the viewer: to technically polished to be real, yet so frivolous, so lazy, about so little, that who in their right mind would go to the trouble to fake or script it.

Supposedly the seasons were shot over the course of 6 months, the people, situations and "drama"… are real - as real as the real orange county (take that Josh Schwartz). The "drama" is all inconsequential relationship entanglements that the characters voluntarily bring upon themselves. Those characters - a group of barely distinguishable sun worshipers who continually swap partners amongst their own incestuous group, then gossip and cry about who is with who now. They do nothing in the world but sit in the hot tub, shop, party and gossip. The girl's vocabulary consists of saying everything is "cute" and the guys have almost no vocabulary at all – struggling to grunt out monosyllabic expressions amid blank stares and silence. Aren't they cute? But even if the bubbliest teenage girl doesn't mind being pandered to, if they step back and look at it they might realize that "Laguna" violates law of inevitability # 1 for why reality shows don't work: real people are usually not very interesting – and it doesn't matter how many times they go to Cabo, how many times their car stalls in the street, how many times they get cheated on, or how many beach bonfires they go to. Having been pampered their entire lives has prevented the "Laguna" gang from growing a sense of humor. The guy's idea of a practical joke is to dress up in a bear costume and crawl into a tent, or don ski masks and stalk outside a girl's poker party smearing fake blood on the window.

The bear costume comedy genius: Stephen (Stephen Colletti), who is presented through the show and the eyes of LC (Lauren Conrad) and her friends as God's gift to women. They sit around for hours talking about this guy and with feet-sweeping one-liners like "You're a hottie with a body" how can they not. The other series "stud", particularly in season 2 is Jason, whose half of the conversation is consists of sitting in silence and answering questions with questions. My favorite is when he says he's mad at his girlfriend for the look on her face. She responds "How do I look?" and he goes "You tell me". His jerk tactics work like magic on every girl on the show. In season 2 their world revolves around him.

The star of the series is Kristin (Cavalleri) – and arguably LC. Both of whom serve as narrators. Both are the poster children perpetuating MTV's narcissistic lifestyle. Kristin is the "player" of the group who gets away with it with a laugh and a smile from all her friends because she's a girl. Lauren plays the nice girl role that falls for all the jerks, knowing that they are jerks, and ends every first date in the hot tub. I'm all about anti-heroes, always have been. The kids of "Laguna" led by Kristin are prime examples – but there is no way MTV had that in mind when stitching the show together. Instead of ironically mocking them, the show is a slobbering celebration of their life. But it's a life where the girls spend most of their time sitting around being victims to apathetic dudes with a reputation for cheating who then cheat on them. Giving Kristin and LC a complete pass for similar piggish behavior, the inevitable message shaped by "Laguna Beach" becomes simply: boys suck.

I'm going to have to admit total lack of comprehension with the show's storyline. The kids of "Laguna Beach" appear to graduate from high school and leave for college twice. The show has a morbid fascination to it, like watching a snake eat a rat or driving past a nasty head-on collision. But if you were able to read this review, you know this much.

The show might have worked by putting an ironic or satirical eye on their antics. But MTV wants these kids to be role models to melt the minds of a generation of girls so they will expect nothing more in their entertainment. Without giving away plot lines, Lauren does something completely random and out of character in the final few episodes that gives her a dramatic arc. It's almost as if she's making a play for a spin-off…

* / 4