Drowning in drama on "Laguna Beach"

HOLLYWOOD — The cattiness started immediately on the third season of the MTV docu-soap "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County."

"And then there were the popular girls," says Tessa, the season's teenage narrator. "There's Cami, the Queen of Mean. She went out of her way to make my life miserable. ... That is Kyndra, the leader of the popular clique. We used to be friends, but she turned her back on me when I needed her most."

Those are fighting words in the hermetically sealed bubble of beachside affluence that is home to the calculating teenagers of "Laguna Beach." To employ one of their favorite phrases: So much drama.

But now that the show has slipped a bit in the ratings, and it has become clear that the new cast may not have the zing of its predecessors, will so much drama be enough? And is "Laguna Beach" in danger of losing its freshness because its cast learned how to portray teenagers by watching ... "Laguna Beach"?

When the show made its debut in 2004, it broke new ground in the reality genre and was an instant hit with MTV's coveted 12- to 24-year-old demographic. It was not a contest like "Survivor," nor a contrived situation like "The Real World." For two seasons — in hot tubs, bistros, bedrooms, boutiques and Baja resorts — cameras followed the core cast of "characters," making a coherent narrative of the extracurricular ups and downs of their junior and senior years.

The show was a success for MTV, but it also made minor celebrities of its protagonists, Lauren, Kristin and Stephen.

Lauren Conrad went on to star in "The Hills," an MTV spinoff that portrays her life as an intern at Teen Vogue. Kristin Cavallari has had an assortment of oddball acting jobs and fashion magazine layouts. Stephen Colletti dropped out of San Francisco State, appears on MTV's "Total Request Live" and is trying to act.

But now what?

"Laguna Beach," is just past the halfway point of the season. Its producers are making decisions about how to proceed with the fourth season, which begins shooting in December. Viewership, while still strong, has declined, which the show's creator said is to be expected.

"It's sort of like if you recast '(Beverly Hills) 90210,' " said Liz Gateley, who is also the executive producer. Viewers, she said, have to make "a whole new investment" in the cast.

The current "Laguna Beach" kids are conscious of the template provided by their predecessors.

Take Cami Edwards, now a 17-year-old senior. She is miffed about being dubbed "the Queen of Mean" by Tessa Keller, but is aware that hyperbole makes for better television. The show has exploited a rivalry between Tessa and Kyndra, playing up a short-lived love triangle between them and a boy named Cameron.

Now that she's been on TV and in magazines, Cami, who takes advanced placement economics and hopes to attend the University of Southern California next year, isn't so sure she wants to go to law school.

She was a junior when this season was shot, and doesn't hesitate when asked if being on this show can change her life: "I think it will if I push myself to go out and get a publicist. That's what Kristin did. She had the personality on the show to let her do that. Her and Lauren, they moved to L.A. and got publicists who do all that stuff for them — put them in magazines, go to red-carpet events. I think Kristin is taking it as far as she possibly can. She's, like, famous for being famous, like Paris Hilton and stuff."

An honest portrayal?

With Cami and her best friend Kyndra Mayo, there's a less flattering dynamic at work, which, at least in Cami's case, has raised uncomfortable questions. What if you can't stand the way you're portrayed on the show? This is something that Cami seemed to be struggling with during a recent interview at the Heidelberg Cafe, a modest coffee and snack spot on Pacific Coast Highway where some of "Laguna Beach" has been shot.

As she fiddled with her hair extensions and waited for Kyndra, who arrived late and looked very hair-extended, she explained why it is annoying to be depicted as one of "Laguna Beach's" resident meanies.

Unlike for Kyndra, who in person exuded an air of 17-going-on-45, it has perhaps not sunk in for Cami that on a cast full of duds, including the narrator Tessa and her soggily sentimental best friend, Raquel, she is basically the wittiest and most polarizing cast member.

"I never thought the little things I say, like, 'Oh Tessa's annoying,' would be turned into 'Cami and Kyndra are mean girls,' " she said. "When I was younger, I was snotty, but who wasn't? Everyone who knows me knows that I am not a mean girl. I mean, everybody my age, if there's some girl who walks by in some outfit, you'd go, 'Whoa, that's a weird outfit.' Everybody says those little things. I mean, they're stupid and they're rude and, of course, we regret saying all that stuff now."

The current cast will be followed into Season 4, said Gateley, probably with some additions.

Cami is looking forward to next season for her own reasons. "I want to be on the fourth season just to clean things up," she said. "Not that I wouldn't be myself, but I would go out of my way to ... I don't know. It just really, really, really sucks. Tessa seems like this goody two-shoes on TV, and I am just sitting there watching it, going, 'If you only knew.' "