The Bachelor: It’s Really, Really Real Now

The Bachelor, Week Four: In every Bachelor season (god knows I’ve seen a few), there comes a week when it occurs to the participants that oh, gosh, this is really real.  They never expected to feel this way so fast, you see. It’s just really real now.

Well, this week was the really real week for the ladies of our latest installment. Cue sighing and crying and soul searching. But before that, get to the set of General Hospital stat! Really, ABC, you stoop so low sometimes. Last year, Matt and Shayne had to do time at a screening of Made of Honor, for God’s sake (an ABC/Disney movie starring ABC star Patrick Dempsey. This, my friends, is synergy).

The Bachelor: Everybody Under the Bus(t)

The Bachelor, Week Three: So I’m watching The Bachelor again. It’s like the bad boyfriend I keep taking back, even though I know only suffering awaits. Ah well. If I have to watch it (and I do, I do), I might as well write about it. Also, it’s too early to go to bed. So! The drama this week made my head spin. I was thinking: Jason is probably one of the most normal-seeming, mature Bachelors in the history of this show…so why is this season so darned nutty?

The Hills: Holly Montag Says “Yes, We Can.”

Holly Montag continued to attempt to bring about peace in them thar Hills this week. Unfortunately, it has taken Holly the better part of the season to get to the deep truth that most viewers realized two years ago: Spencer is the problem. (Um. Duh?) At Holly’s urging, Heidi wrote Lauren a pointless letter, along the lines of her pointless IMs and her pointless visit to LC’s apartment last season. Anyway, Lauren seemed pretty unmoved by Heidi’s heartfelt prose. Meanwhile, Spencer continued to be totally evil and Audrina went out with a new guy but ruined it when she couldn’t STFU about Justin Bobby. 

So, on to that philosophical question posed by LC as she lounged by the pool: What if Heidi never met Spencer?

Well, The Hills probably wouldn’t even be on the air anymore, for one thing. (Season One? Dull!) But putting that aside, do you think LC and Heidi would still be pals if Spencer never existed? And do you think Holly, with her blindly optimistic peacemongering, would make a good Secretary of State?

I’m Taking a Mental Health Week

The Hills was actually sort of amusing last night, but I just can’t do it this week. To sum up: Everyone is mad at everyone and crying. Doug jumped in the pool and splashed Whitney and called Lauren his “ex-fling” and decorates his house with drawings and photos of his stupid face. But they’re all filthy rich so who cares? The end.

The “Real” Hills: Audrina Is Sooo Outta There

On the reality show The Hills, Audrina and Lauren have just tearily recommitted to togetherness. But in real life, Audrina has moved out of her “chateau.” She tells Maxim the move will ultimately make her friendships stronger (yea, that’s what Spencer told Heidi when she moved out on LC, too), but then she says of Lauren and Lo: “They grew up together and hang out all the time; they’re like the Bobbsey Twins.” Ouch!

Tea Party with Johnny Depp? Yes, Please.

Johnny Depp has signed on to play the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland. It’s due out in 2010–so excited! I just hope Johnny doesn’t use the same fake teeth he used as Willy Wonka. Eesh.

Jenny Lewis: “I Should Be Like Corey Haim”

I know we usually stick to inane TV around here, but my mind is on good music today (well, most days, really). Though I’m unemployed and penniless, I did manage to find enough change in my sofa to spring for Jenny Lewis’s new record Acid Tongue this week. Jenny is the former child actor (Troop Beverly Hills anyone?), current lead singer of Rilo Kiley, and oft-described “indie-rock heartthrob.” 

The Bachelor Alums: Engaged, Preggers, and “Scaling Down”

Time for a mini Bachelor update! Remember when Jen Schefft was Better Single Than Sorry? Welp, now she’s Better Engaged Than Sorry (or something).  And she just met the guy in February! On a blind date, no less! “I guess it’s true things move fast when you meet the right person,” Jen tells People.

It’s no wonder she ran to People with her news, rather than Us Weekly. After all, Us gave her ex Andrew Firestone a cover story a few months ago wherein he yammered on about his “second chance at love” and how annoying it is when Jen texts him, etc. No surprise, then, that Us gets Andrew’s big news: He and his new wife Ivana are expecting a lil’ Bachelor (or Bachelorette).

And now to DeAnna and Jesse. I’m a little worried. They just announced to People that they’re scaling down their wedding. There’s certainly nothing wrong with a small wedding, but it seems the demise of Bachelor couples always begins with something like “scaling down.” Then it’s “We’re both so busy!” and then it’s “The wedding is postponed, but we’re still in love!” and then, before you know it, the ring is on eBay.

DeAnna told People: “We’re both so busy all the time. We don’t have time right now to plan a wedding, and we’re planning a wedding, which is crazy.” Gulp.

Oh and another thing: Why do all those creepy feet on Jen’s book cover have such odd, ugly shoes on? Hm.

The Hills: The She-Pratt Makes Her Move

Last night brought–finally!–the much anticipated, much foreshadowed She-Pratt betrayal: Stephanie and Doug went on a date. They were totally secretive (except that Stephanie had already told Spencer and Audrina, who told Lo and Heidi, and there were, um, cameras there) but then Brody’s nosy mother ruined everything!  

The Hills: They Read! (And, Apparently, Write!)

By now we’ve all heard—if not quite accepted or really comprehended or fully dealt with—the news that Lauren Conrad has signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Her YA series, about a girl who moves to L.A. and ends up on a reality show [insert joke here, I am too beaten down to do so] will be called: L.A. Candy. The first book is due out in summer 2009.

Okay, so the title sucks and, as I’ve told several friends, I think they should have rushed the book to print; I predict that no one will care about The Hills by next summer. (Hello, does anyone remember The Truth About Diamonds?) Still, that doesn’t mean myself and other would-be writers didn’t quietly weep and that our souls didn’t die a little as HarperCollins declared that they’d never experienced such buzz around a project.

Anyway, it got me thinking: Do those Hills kids actually read? And if so, what? For the She-Pratt’s recent birthday, LC gifted her the coffee table book The Handbag: An Illustrated History. Then Stephanie gave Spencer The Secret History of the CIA (ha!) by Joseph J. Trento. Heidi, of course, reads the Bible. And way back in Season Two, Lauren read You Didn’t Hear It From Us, a how-to about meeting men written by two bartenders.

That’s all I’ve got. Until L.A. Candy appears, to rot our teeth as well as our hopes and dreams.