The TV Zone

Well, that was bad for me. Was it bad for you?

Honestly, there's a reason MTV is prepping sixteen new reality series ("From Gs to Gents!") After all, how many more episodes of "Parental Control" can anyone stomach? Or..."The Hills?"

There's also a reason - a very good one - why viewership has melted away for this once mega-now-mini cultural phenom, where conflations like "Speidi" or feuds like Lauren v. Heidi seemed to once matter in some ethereal air-headed sort of way.

MTV's genius - wrong word but the only one that comes to mind at the moment - lies in churning out the sausage so fast that one clunker is verily indistinguishable from the next clunker until a certain clunker actually feels like it's saying something about modern American life, or saying something that a few million teen girls would like it to be saying. Until they're sooo bored. Which now appears to be the case.

Was anyone moved by that con job last night? Speidi not really a matrimonial team but actually married in a fake wedding in Mexico, or - as I think Spence put it - they weren't really "legal" yet. I guess that'll come as a surprise to the 25 million couples in Mexico who had the bad luck to be married there. Not legal! Move to LA and make it real there!

That judge: Didn't she have anything better to do? The city of Los Angeles (or was it Vegas? They all seem the same...) is in flames. Bodies are piling up in the streets. Justice must be meted out. But there she is, waiting around for Speidi to waltz in and announce their love, only for them to tell her that - oh, neverMIND.

"Who are you?" the judge innocently asked. As if this world-famous couple/not-a-couple were just hanging around outside her chamber, and then they walk in and she decides: "Why not? Let's have a wedding."

Who are they, judge? Don't worry. In another year, no one else will know either.

Then, Spencer - whose heart magically grew several times, from peanut-sized to at least walnut-sized - announced that they'd better hold off, just to make mom happy.

Or that "reunion" with Heidi and Lauren. Lauren almost looked like someone who JUST COULDN'T FAKE IT ANYMORE. Heidi gamely played along, asking if she "works out."

"Works out?" Apparently Heidi hasn't been watching her own show. The only thing Lauren's been working out at is hating on Heidi.

The writers should've given Heidi something surreal to say - something so bizarre, so outlandish, so peculiar, so amusing, that even viewers would say: Maybe the poor dear is going insane?

Like: "I've been reading Kierkegaard, but honestly, Nietzsche is more to my taste. By the way, have you been working out?"

None of this matters. Nor does "The Hills." Whitney was smart to move on to "The City." I can hardly wait for that episode on Manolo Blahniks.

Grade: C -