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From Richard Larson's Gawker post about the madness on The Hills:

The Hills used to be kind of a good time — you could make fun of it, dissect the outfits, laugh at the sweeping music and landscape shots. But now... ugh. It's skidded into the realm of grotesque dance macabre. There might not be much to be done about Heidi now. She may be too in the thrall of the terrible fame monster. This might be her life. And that is a genuinely sad thing, for which we may be partly responsible. But we can at least, from here on out, stand on the principle that we won't give them anymore ratings, we won't do them the benefit of making fun of them, we won't keep on with the indulging.

I rarely watch The Hills, but I agree that the show has moved from watchable silliness to plain ridiculousity.  Sure those girls have nice clothes (taste levels are debatable), but I wouldn't trade anything to have their plastic, empty lives.  MTV fed viewers a show that was easy on the eyes (and the brain), but how much are they to blame?  We reciprocated by watching and buying magazines featuring the cast.  And of course, the cast can't simply be victims because they signed themselves up and haven't signed out (and I mean literally, because some of them are mentally signed out!).