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Spencer: gamer.

I was reading an Entertainment Weekly article about The Hills last night and one of the producers talked about how they saw the series as a modern Mary Tyler Moore. Half of me found this notion to be sacrilege, as MTM is one of my top ten shows of all time, though the more I thought about it I started to see what he meant: at it’s core The Hills is about a girl moving to the city trying to make it after all. The difference is in this version everyone is 23 and “hot” and Ted Baxter is replaced with Spencer Pratt. Lots more after the jump…

There was a funny moment early on this week when Heidi says something along the lines of, “Yeah, but when you meet a Spencer at my age…” She’s right. I mean, I met a Spencer once when I was 14 and then another when I was 25 and neither one really left much of an impression on me. Had I been 23, however, things would have been completely different. Today, I’d probably be Mr. Rick Spencer Pecoraro, and y’know… gay. It is those kinds of “I’ve lived a long full life” statements that make The Hills worth watching.

Spencer bought a Centipede game for their apartment, inching their decor one step closer to Sebastian Bach territory (if you’ve ever seen his episode of Cribs, you know what I’m talking about). Having just watched “The King of Kong” this afternoon (a new documentary about two men competing for the all-time Donkey Kong high score), everything suddenly started to make sense. Spencer definitely fits into the Billy Mitchell school of douchebaggery (see the movie, then reread the paragraph… it’ll make sense).

On the other side of the series (does anyone else think it’s odd that we now have these two best friends whose lives don’t intersect still inhabiting the same show?) when did Lauren start to sound like Rachel Ray? She’s developed an odd east coast, nasally whine to her speech pattern. When she was out with Audrina and the disastrous Justin/Bobby/Justin-Bobby everything she said came out like she was hiding Fran Dresher in her larynx. “You want your evaluation,” she screeched to the super-mysterious Justin/Bobby/Justin-Bobby. “I don’t care,” he says back. “Audrina cares!” BAM! Take that jerk.

Spencer’s voice, on the other hand, sounds like every word he says has been uttered after lifting a gallon of milk (soy milk, of course) or after taking a moderate sized dump. I can only imagine what his mid-fornication banter sounds like (and yes, Spencer is without a doubt a mid-fornication banterer).

I loved that the next day by the pool Lauren and Audrina have a heart to heart about Justin/Bobby/Justin-Bobby and we’re left with the soundtrack kicking out some serious malleds while Audrina weighs whether or not she should continue to see fashion-disaster Justin/Bobby/Justin-Bobby (he looks like Skeet Ulrich dressed by a gay lumberjack). What really sells it for me is the essence of the decision she has to make: does she continue to date a long-haired, hoodie-wearing, mumble-burper who once left her stranded in Vegas and has the apparent personality of Dog-Star era Keanu Reeves, or does she dump him and go back to getting, oh I don’t know, any man she could possibly want in 92% of the clubs in Southern California. Yeah, really marinate on that one, Audi.

She meets up with Justin/Bobby/Justin-Bobby a few days later and we all learn that he just doesn’t care. He’s just too damn cool to care. He isn’t bound by caring. He is above needing to care. If Justin/Bobby/Justin-Bobby were a Care Bear, his name would be “Contridiction Explosion” and would have a picture of the null set on his stomach. I almost find his coolness to be so piercing, I fear for my soul.

Heidi had a legitimately great line halfway through the episode when she said, “I feel like we’re literally living in a playhouse.” In fact, I’ve started to realize that aside from the clear and present danger brought about by the presence of Spencer, Heidi is actually kind of smart and down to earth – way different than the party-all-the-time Heidi from season one that I knew and hated. I almost want to call her responsible now. I won’t. But it’s close. Compared to, say, the vacuous Whitney, Heidi is Descartes.

Later when she painted over Spencer’s super original “Hollywood” mural I wanted to jump through the television and give her a high five. It was perfect. It was just. It was classic. I’m gonna say it: I love Heidi. Heidi is practical. God, I hope she rips his heart out. Is it wrong that wish such ill-will on this fictional/non-fictional disaster of a character? I hope not, because this season is just getting underway and I’m loving it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 2:01 pm and is filed under MTV, The Hills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.