"Pilot"
Hey there fans of high-school-set sudsers, I've got some scoop to share:
Gossip Girl is one of the best shows of the new fall season. Emmy-worthy good? No - I'm not delusional - but this show is loads of guilty-pleasure fun.
With
The O.C. having gone off into the sunset and
One Tree Hill on hiatus until midseason, I was worried about where was I going to find my weekly fix of high school drama. Not that I'll watch just any teen show (please, I have standards). But luckily,
Gossip Girl stepped up to the plate to fill the void, and I'm happy to report it's off to a good start.
I'll admit up front that I'm a longtime fan of "teen" movies and TV shows. Years before I was a teenager, I'd watch
John Hughes classics on cable. As a teen, I cleared my calendar weekly for
Beverly Hills, 90210. I thought this indulgence would finally end postadolescence with
Dawson's Creek. But it didn't, and I kept watching. So I now consider teen sudsers a perfectly respectable subgenre of soaps in general, and I realize that I'm not alone, because they appeal to a wider audience: eager preteens; those actually in high school; college kids; and the nostalgic postcollege set (and by postcollege I mean anyone age 22-100).
A further subgenre of teen dramas is the prep-school drama (e.g.,
Dead Poets Society,
School Ties,
Cruel Intentions), and this is the category in which
Gossip Girl fits. Prep-school dramas typically mean East Coast settings, superrich kids and tailored school uniforms in warm autumnal hues, and
Gossip Girl has all of these staples. It's set and filmed in Manhattan, and authentic location shots with sometimes gray skies make for a welcome, edgy departure from the sunny
O.C. sunshine.
The show is based on Cecily von Ziegesar's
Gossip Girl series of books (I read part of the first one as "research" for this), but those who haven't read any of the books won't be lost at all. As with all adaptations, some characters had to be cut and changes made (I know some people are upset that little Jenny is not as well-endowed as she's described to be in the books), but the transition from the page to the small screen seems to work well overall.
That's
Kristen Bell giving voice to the all-knowing Gossip Girl of the title, using a perfectly executed snarky tone. The first scoop she shares is that It Girl Serena van der Woodsen (her name just oozes money) is suddenly back in town, after leaving under mysterious circumstances for boarding school just one year ago. You'd think the blonde, beautiful, boyfriend-stealing Serena would be easy to hate, but I find her quite likable.
Blake Lively gives her a down-to-earth quality, yet keeps an air of mystery to her. She's a bad girl trying to reform, and it's hard not to root for that. Not so likable: her best friend Blair Waldorf (
Leighton Meester). There are many reasons to feel bad for Blair: Her best friend abruptly left town without telling her; her mother overemphasizes the importance of looks; and her longtime boyfriend and best friend both betrayed her when they slept with each other last year. And yet, instead of inspiring empathy, she comes off as sort of a bitch. There's a fun complexity to that.
So who's the boy who's tearing two best buds apart? That would be Nate Archibald (
Chace Crawford), who resembles a young
Josh Hartnett. So far he seems a little blah and unworthy of such a major catfight, but I suppose his character just needs more time to develop. He comes off as a bit shy and is easily controlled by his dad. Oh, and he cheated on his girlfriend. But he's still not as bad as his pal Chuck Bass, the classic apathetic, wealthy bad boy.
Ed Westwick's performance is reminiscent of
James Spader's in
Pretty in Pink, where he played the ultimate "I toy with people because I'm rich and bored" sleaze. In the pilot episode alone both Serena and Jenny have to fight him off. He delivers smarmy yet observant lines such as, "What we're entitled to is a trust fund, maybe a house in the Hamptons, a prescription drug problem, but happiness... does not seem to be on the menu. So smoke up, and seal the deal with Blair cause you're also entitled to tap that ass." Every good soap needs some villains, and he's got potential to be a great love-to-hate-him character.
On the flip side, you also need some good guys, and that's where Dan and Jenny Humphrey come in. This brother and sister aren't quite as rich as the rest of the kids, yet their struggling musician/owner-of-a-small-art-gallery dad manages to send them to private school because he values education. Rufus (
Matthew Settle) is a fine example of the teen soap tradition of the attractive but questionably young parent of teens, and I want to thank this show for making the '90s seem so incredibly ancient. Dan's what, 16? So he was born in 1991. If Rufus' band's glory days were in the '90s, they lasted what, from 1990 to 1991? Or maybe he was a rocker while he was a new dad, coming home from gigs in time for 3 am feedings. Whatever the specifics were, somehow he managed to fit in some quality time at a Nine Inch Nails concert with Serena's mom (
Kelly Rutherford) during that crazy grunge era of yesteryear.
As for his kids: I like that Jenny (
Taylor Momsen) is only in the ninth grade - some variety in the kids' ages allows for some different perspectives. Jenny's sweet, naive and very eager to fit in with the in crowd. How far she'll go to accomplish that goal remains to be seen. On the other hand, her big brother, Dan (former WB It Boy
Penn Badgley, with a new, shorter 'do), is invisible to the popular kids, as evidenced by Chuck and Nate not recognizing him on the bus, despite having gone to the same school as him for a few years. And being on the outside doesn't seem to bother this quiet, self-deprecating loner all that much, except in relation to his deep crush on the super-popular Serena. Through a series of mishaps and luck, he manages to go from hiding from her to going out on a date with her over the course of a few days. Although he denies being Prince Charming to the concierge, that may be an accurate description for him. After all, he saves Serena from having to go to Blair's Kiss on the Lips party (initially, at least), then saves his little sister from Chuck at said party. Dan, Serena and Jenny's exit from the party is triumphant indeed, and Dan and Serena have all the makings of an adorable couple. But coming from different backgrounds and traveling in different social circles will make for quite a bumpy road ahead of them, I'm sure.
I'm also sure much will be said about Blair and Serena's martini scene.
Gossip Girl is a world in which high schoolers can get served at hotel bars with no problem. Um... maybe they have really good fake IDs? I look at this as one of those things you let slide because it is the fantasy world of TV. Some of the kids on
One Tree Hill have MIA parents. Many characters on adult soaps have unrealistically fabulous jobs. And if you look hard enough, you can even find some helpful lessons in this show. For example, the Chuck and Jenny scene teaches this to gullible freshmen: If a seemingly charming upperclassman asks you to go up on the roof with him in order to "talk somewhere quiet," it's probably best to decline that offer.
So, one episode in and I'm hooked. So many questions already on the table to get things rolling: Will Blair try to get revenge on Serena now that she knows about her and Nate? Is the Nate hookup the only reason Serena ran away to boarding school? Why did Serena's brother attempt suicide? Hopefully, this show will catch on and we'll get answers to all these questions and more.
Check out clips from
Gossip Girl in our
Online Video Guide.
