Trivia / The Hills

• Deleted Scene: On the tenth anniversary of the series finale's original airing, an alternate ending was released that would have showed Brody going back to see Lauren at her apartment after he speaks with Kristin for the last time. This was changed in the final cut to a Gainax Ending that suggested that some/all of the show was faked.
• Edited for Syndication: In the United Kingdom.
• Executive Meddling: One of the reasons why Lauren Conrad allegedly left the show was because MTV wanted to push her feud with Heidi, even though she wanted to put all of that behind her.
• Follow-Up Failure: Both The City (which was The Hills transplanted to New York with a new set of backstabbing characters and relationship woes for Lauren's friend Whitney) and Audrina (which followed Lauren's other friend, Audrina Patridge) were underwhelming shows that were cancelled at the end of their second and first season, respectively. Both were canned by MTV (Audrina wasn't even picked up after the first season finished shooting - VH1 aired it) because the network was moving away from the reality show surge it had focused on for most of the 2000's.
• Franchise Killer: The infamous sixth season Retool of the show in 2011, which ended with an infamous Gainax Ending, functionally did this to the entire franchise spawned by Laguna Beach. All of the shows spun off from the series crashed and burned — The City, which was into its second season at the time of Hills's series finale, was not renewed at the end of that season, while an apparent spinoff involving fellow cast member Audrina Patridge wasn't picked up by the network, necessitating that VH1 step in to broadcast it. While The Hills did receive a Revival in the form of 2019's The Hills: New Beginnings, the show generally steers clear of the events of the sixth season, while the Gainax Ending of the original show was outright removed for reruns.
• Real Song Theme Tune: "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. A rather... interesting choice for a reality show that has been accused many times of being staged.

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