It’s safe to say the writers’ strike that halted the television world last year might have killed television as we knew it. Reality TV ran rampant, and the only ‘good’ shows left the air for months at a time.The effects of the strike are now surfacing as shows written in the aftermath begin to invade our homes. And, to be polite, the writing sucks. The following three shows need to kick the bucket before more damage is done.

kmimamur@syr.edu

‘The Hills’Mondays at 10 p.m. on MTV

No matter how scripted the lives of Lauren Conrad and her pseudo-attractive friends become, ‘The Hills’ will remain a guilty pleasure for many.

Conrad’s move from posh Laguna Beach, Calif., to Los Angeles was the catalyst for the bogus-reality TV show, now in its fourth season.

Each 30-minute episode in the current season is the same. The cast goes from nightclub to nightclub and to numerous LA restaurants without ever returning to the same place. Yes, Los Angeles does have a lot of nightclubs and restaurants, but ‘The Hills’ seems to be name-dropping more than following Conrad and her friends.

‘The Hills’ tries too hard to portray the beautiful part of the city of angels, staging shots at the trendiest hot spots and showing sweeping views of the Hollywood hills glittered with multi-million dollar mansions.

Conrad and fake friend Audrina Patridge now have weekly photos in People magazine. ‘The Hills’ accomplished what it set out to do: blur the lines of reality and scripted reality TV and make Conrad into a C-list star. Congrats MTV.

Ultimately, ‘The Hills’ is getting old, and Lauren Conrad is, too.

‘One Tree Hill’Mondays at 9 p.m. on The CW

When the show first began in 2003, ‘One Tree Hill’ was about high schoolers who looked too good for their age. It told the story of the relationship between Nathan and Lucas Scott, brothers and basketball rivals with a lot of daddy issues.

The show instantly catapulted Chad Michael Murray, who played Lucas, to Teen Bop stardom.

But sadly, that’s all gone. The soundtrack has been reduced to piano-based indie music and the attempted launch of Kate Voegele’s music career. The relationship between Lucas and Nathan has been fixed after their father, mayor Dan Scott, went to jail for killing his brother.

And then the storyline skips five years.A lot can happen in five years. At the beginning of the sixth season, Dan is out of jail on parole and in dire need of a heart transplant, Nathan and his high-school sweetheart are the parents of a 5-year-old son and Lucas wrote a one-hit wonder novel.

Sprinkled in for good measure are the numerous car accidents, fights, shootings and the occasional death of a beloved secondary character.

‘America’s Next Top Model’Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW

For a show that has yet to produce a model that lives up to its title, the 11th cycle of ‘America’s Next Top Model’ is overkill. Tyra Banks was a wonderful supermodel, but her talk show hosting skills are debatable. And ‘ANTM,’ which she worked so hard on, has reached its breaking point.

The contestants compete in various modeling-related challenges and photo shoots. The elaborate themes for these shoots are unrealistic and outlandish. It seems as if the models are being put through torture camp rather than being taught how to model.

Surviving and winning the competition gives the ‘top model’ a chance at her dream, a modeling contact, a photo spread in a national magazine and a makeup contract.

It’s amazing that Cover Girl cosmetics and Seventeen magazine have stuck around as the show declines. (Actually, the winner used to have a photo spread in Elle magazine, but for some reason the show didn’t resonate with its target demographic. Smart move.)

‘Top Model’ never lived up to its potential. None of its models are on magazine covers now, they’re in the ads for streetwear and shoes – not the runways in Paris or Milan.

Published on October 12, 2008 at 12:00 pm