Laguna Beach: Everything Millennials Need to Catch Up On Before The Reunion
During the '00s, the popularity of the reality show really began to take off. Without the shows of this era, there would have been no The Only Way is Essex, Made in Chelsea, or Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Two of the early champions of the television genre were The Simple Life and The Osbournes, but whilst both of those starred faces already in the public zeitgeist, and The Simple Life was heavily orchestrated, Laguna Beach provided something different.
For four seasons, the reality show followed the lives of a pocket of teenagers residing in the affluent Laguna Beach area of California. The show was standard Millennial viewing as fans tuned in to consume all of the seemingly unscripted teen drama. Somehow, it has been 20 years since the first episode aired and gave the world Lauren 'LC' Conrad, Stephen Colletti, and Kristen Cavallari. To celebrate, the gang have gotten back together for Laguna Beach: The Reunion, which has promised to air all of the show’s dirty secrets, including finally getting to the bottom of whether Lauren Conrad and Kristen Cavallari really hated each other.
Coming just weeks after America's Next Top Model documentary, Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, and the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary, Millennials really are winning at the moment when it comes to nostalgia television. But before settling in to see the cast come clean, you have the perfect excuse to watch everything connected to Laguna Beach. Here's a refresh for those who have forgotten.
There would be no Laguna Beach were it not for The O.C. The teen drama was an immediate success with its first season, casting a wicked spell over the younger viewer demographic. The series followed the trials and tribulations of Orange County's richest families as the Cohen family took in a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Ryan Atwood. His arrival stirs up chaos, causes dark secrets to be unearthed, and allowed the show to take the teen drama crown from both Beverly Hills, 90210 and Dawson's Creek.
The O.C. ran for four seasons, and whilst the fourth is pretty weak by comparison, the others are near perfect. The show introduced the world to Mischa Barton, Ben McKenzie, Rachel Bilson, and Adam Brody, and pushed the boundaries for its exploration of some teen issues, such as eating disorders, binge drinking, and drug abuse. A platform for new designers and musicians, The O.C. basically dictated to an entire generation what was cool. The show also wasn't afraid to add in a knowing wink now and again with its in-universe shows, ‘The Valley’ and its fictional reality spinoff, ‘The Real Valley’.
After the obvious success of The O.C, the team at MTV quickly realised that they could capitalise on its popularity. Having already masterminded one of the original reality hits, The Real World, it decided to show what the lives of teens from the real O.C. were like, and so Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County was born.
Although nowhere near as glamorous as the lives of the Coopers and the Cohens, the teenagers at the centre of Laguna Beach clearly had money. All their clothes comprised expensive labels and designers, and many had cars that had come straight off the lot rather than being hand-downs. But it wasn’t how they lived that hooked audiences, but rather all of the teen angst and melodrama that the show had to offer. Nothing ever got as dark as Marissa OD’ing in Tijuana, but the emotional rollercoaster they were all on provided a lot of entertainment. The show ran for four seasons and followed the lives of a cluster of friends nearing the end of high school, and saw them all dealing with graduating, picking colleges, and attending prom.
The first season placed Lauren Conrad as the main character and covered her occasional romantic dynamic with close friend Stephen Colletti. The problem was that Stephen was dating junior Kristin Cavallari. This love triangle had viewers on the edge of their seats, but then Conrad and Colletti graduated and left the show. With both out of the picture, Cavallari took centre stage, but it wasn’t long before LC and Stephen dropped by to ensure the drama continued. Given what went down with the trio, Laguna Beach: The Reunion has the potential for plenty of fireworks.
After her time on Laguna Beach came to an end, Lauren Conrad was given her own show, The Hills, which chronicled her ambition to work in the fashion industry. She arrived in Los Angeles as an intern at Teen Vogue, where she met new friend Whitney Port and lived with her bestie, Heidi Montag. A much more grown-up show than Laguna Beach, The Hills honed in on the stresses of work and showed how hard working in fashion could be. It also gave the world the pairing of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, aka ‘Speidi’.
Spencer’s arrival as Heidi’s love interest during the second season turned Lauren’s world upside down, and watching the friendship between the girls disintegrate broke everyone’s heart. Pratt clearly loved playing the role of villain and went so far as to spread rumours about a sex tape of Lauren and her then-boyfriend, Jason Wahler.
Conrad led The Hills for five and a half seasons, during which time she suffered the breakdown of a friendship, multiple boy woes stirred up by Wahler, and endured a will they, won’t they dynamic with Brody Jenner. Then, during the wedding of Speidi, she left the city, only to once more be replaced by Kristin Cavallari. Cavallari was involved in yet another love triangle or two, but this time she was pitted against one of Lauren’s close friends, Audrina Patridge, as the duo went to war over Johnny Depp wannabe, Justin Bobby. Of all the Laguna Beach universe shows, The Hills is the best, and I challenge any Millennial to listen to ‘Unwritten’ by Natasha Bedingfield and not think of this show.
Throughout Lauren Conrad’s highs and lows on The Hills, her one source of calm was Whitney Port. The pair worked together as interns at Teen Vogue before going on to work for PR maven Kelly Cutrone at her company, People’s Revolution. Port was always the quietest of the cast, and so it was a surprise when she was given her own spin-off, The City.
The story moved from California to New York, an interesting decision, but one likely spurred by The O.C. having finished and its replacement, Gossip Girl, set in the city. Although it only ran for two seasons, The City was a fashion lover's dream, with Whitney getting a job at Diane von Fürstenberg and channelling The Devil Wears Prada by having Port locked into a rivalry with socialite Olivia Palermo. The second season placed Palermo working for Elle Magazine's website, whilst Whitney worked hard setting up her own fashion line, Whitney Eve. The City lacked the insatiable drama of The Hills, but did offer a deeper look at the inner workings of the fashion industry.
Over the course of The Hills, Audrina Patridge became a firm fan favourite. Clearly more of an alternative girl, clad in tattoos and with a love of rock music, she brought in a new audience. Her biggest fault was her inability to distance herself from playboy Justin Bobby, but fans could relate to her attraction to the bad boy. Given her popularity, it made sense that she be given her own show after the end of The Hills, but sadly, Audrina only lasted for just one season.
Audrina focused on Patridge’s career and family life, joining her on photo shoots and family outings, and it was all a bit Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Whilst that format works for them, it didn’t translate here as, outside of Audrina, the audience didn’t know the rest of her family.
Of all of the cast of Laguna Beach, Kristen Cavallari has been the one most at hard working in reality television. Whereas Lauren Conrad left reality TV behind to work on her own fashion brands and book series, and Stephen Colletti moved into acting, starring in later seasons of One Tree Hill, Cavallari stuck to reality and allowed the cameras to follow her on the show Very Cavallari.
The show followed her and her husband, former footballer Jay Cutler, as they lived in Nashville, and Cavallari launched her jewellery brand, Uncommon James. Very Cavallari fared better than Audrina, running for three seasons, but the collapse of the marriage of Cavallari and Cutler called time on it.
In 2019, almost 10 years after the end of The Hills, came The Hills: New Beginnings, which reconnected with some of the fan favourites. This time, the format was slightly different and included interviews with the cast who played around the reality portion of events. During these chats, the cast members opened up in a way they hadn’t done before, and pulled the curtain back on secrets from the original show. Now older, the storylines revolved around Speidi becoming parents, Audrina navigating the aftermath of her divorce, and Brody Jenner trying to work out his own marriage. The Hills: New Beginnings also brought in The O.C.’s Mischa Barton, a move which broke the brains of fans everywhere. Another new arrival was Brandon Thomas Lee, son of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.
The first season of the show was a ratings winner, but the filming of the second season, which saw the arrival of a newly single Kristen Cavallari, had to be paused due to the pandemic. As such, by the time it returned for a second season, its momentum had gone, but maybe, if Laguna Beach: The Reunion goes down well, The Hills could be resurrected yet again in some other guise.
