The continuing adventures of Lauren Conrad and company took a modest dip in the ratings Monday night with "We'll Never Be Friends" as the fourth season premiere of The Hills fell in the Nielsens.

The half-hour fourth season debut of MTV’s quasi-reality-soap-thing was down 9 percent in its key 12-to-34 demographic (2.1 million) and down 5 percent among total viewers (3.5 million) compared to its debut last year.

If you compare it only to the 10 p.m. episode last year, The Hills is still down, albeit slightly less than indicated above.

Check that against the giant 40 percent ratings jump between the premieres of Season 2 and Season 3 and you have what some believe could be an overall leveling off of The Hills popularity.

The coming weeks will provide a better test, as the Olympics have been (of course) dominating everything. But peeps may just be sick of Heidi Montag (above). No idea why that would be ...

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.