Product Description

It’s one of the wealthiest, most beautiful communities in the world and MTV has unlimited access to the tight-knit power clique of eight rich, beautiful teenagers that live there. Their lives intertwine in ways you won’t believe, until you drop in for a visit. Watch as these friends share experiences through parties, relationships, love triangles and small town injustices. This is where the angst and the tumultuous affairs are the stuff of prime time drama. Welcome to Paradise, otherwise known as Laguna Beach, California.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9201 in DVD
• Brand: BOSWORTH,LAUREN
• Released on: 2006-08-08
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .65 pounds
• Running time: 367 minutes

Amazon.com
Laguna Beach, the MTV hit about real-life rich kids in the coastal Orange County town, is too real to be a soap opera and too fake to be a reality series--and therein lies the rub. At least if Laguna Beach were a scripted drama, you could buy the suspended disbelief that a crush would just happen to appear in front of you as you're saying, "I wonder what he thinks about me." Or if it were truly a reality series, you can forgive the repeated exclamations of "This is going to be soooo fun, I am soo excited, you guys!" But because producers pull one too many puppet strings to heighten drama and add exposition, the sudsy guilty pleasure can be hard to watch. After all, how many times in a week can two guys pause in the middle of skateboarding to discuss their feelings? (This is addressed in the post-show interviews, where cast members spill that they're ordered to alert producers when they're about to dump someone so they can film the action in time.) Nonetheless, season two builds in addictive nature courtesy of alpha female Kristin (Cavallari, who later wound up a tabloid staple), now the narrator. She's the spice to season one narrator LC's sugar, a Mean Girl without the moral lesson. (Ironically, home movies featured on the DVD show Kristin, age 2, dressed as a witch for Halloween.) She unabashedly breaks hearts, "hooks up" with her friends' crushes, misleads her hangdog ex Stephen, and bashes rival blondes. If Kristin had less sense, she'd actually be a perfect match for perennial cheater Jason, whose "hotness" remains inexplicable given his inability to ignore his hormones. Don't miss Jason's interview in the bonus features, in which he repeatedly uses the words "bad," "stupid," and "I wasn't thinking" when confronted about his many dalliances.

Aside from the theatrics, this gang encounters prom, spring break trips to Mexico, graduation gifts from Tiffany, and charity fashion shows. College and parents are non-entities; "the new girl" comes with a lavish mansion, backstabbing gossip, and a personal hairstylist who gives her Barbie mop-locks. But for fans who know drama all too well, the Laguna Beach crew represents high school in Fantasyland, where your friends just happen to be beautiful and rich. -Ellen A. Kim

Customer Reviews

ah, Guilty Pleasure at its finest
This show is pretty much the definition of a guilty pleasure, and I'm guilty all right: half of the people I know mock me for watching this show and the other half have no idea I watch because I would die of shame if they found out. My sister constantly questions why I watch LB and I have fine-honed my reasons:

-- I went to an overly academically geared high school, so never had the chance to gossip about the in-crowd hijinks of "hooking up" and drunken antics. I missed out on my prime gossip years!

-- It's a chance to see how the other (wealthier) half live... and mock them.

-- Anthropologists have determined that 60% of human communication involves talking about other people; watching "Laguna Beach" proves how human I am.

-- It's a chance to sit back and watch attractive, overly wealthy and pampered teenagers make each other miserable by gossiping, back-stabbing and stealing each other's boyfriends and objects of affection. It's like the real-life version of "Mean Girls" only without Tina Fey writing their lines for them. Less wit, better clothes!

The show is lots of fun if you've got the twisted sensibility to enjoy it. And the second season is much, much better than the first season, with more cat fights, break-ups, tears and "hook-ups" than ever.

My only caveat: watching this on DVD is really the best way to watch, just downing episode after episode right after each other, but I don't know about the necessity of owning them -- who would want to re-watch these episode over and over again? I'm pretty much of the opinion that no reality show is a must-have on DVD, so definitely Netflix/rent over buying.

Not the OC but a whole different view
Laguna Beach is a great show to watch while hanging out with your friends or just having some down time on a Saturday afternoon. It is mostly made up of fueds between friends and dramas that occur with regular teenagers around the world. I for one love this show and TiVo it every time it appears on television. I used to think it was just abut some stupid kids running around spending money but when I started to watch it more and more, I got hooked! I can't wait to see the next season! I would definatley recomend this show and would encourage you to buy the DVD set.

Good for the die hard fans.. but there's a problem...
Like many people, I was sucked into the Laguna bubble, and became a die hard fan of the series, so it only made sense that I buy this set. The packaging that MTV did is beautiful, the quality and sound is great, and all the extras are well worth watching.

The only problem I have with this set, is that MTV made a bunch of music changes. Some songs that were used in the original broadcasting of the show have been replaced, and in my opinion, the changes stuck out like a sore thumb. If you watched all the reruns, and are enough of a fan to buy the set, I'm sure you'll notice them too. Personally, I can't stand when the original music of episode has been altered. But what really annoys me, is that MTV didn't even put a warning anywhere on the box. "Features brand new music," would have been a nice warning to those willing to fork out $30 for their set, but apparently they kept it a close guarded secret. At least with "Dawson's Creek," ( original music was also changed for the dvd ) they let the consumers know about it. Bad move MTV.