High school soap opera in the mold of Beverly Hills 90210 or The OC, but even trashier.
As we open, everyone is all a-buzz over the return of Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), who's been away at boarding school for a year. No, really, that's where she's been, even if everyone says she was really in rehab. She is immediately plunged back into the tangled web of prep school life.
Serena's one-time best friend, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) --
OK, I just gotta interrupt myself here. These names are magnificent creations. Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf -- it's like someone was asked to come up with the most trashy, tacky, nouveau riche, slutty names imaginable, and lord, did they succeed! But I digress...
Anyway, Blair, who is obviously the Bad Girl because she's a brunette and Serena is blonde, has spent the year of Serena's absence fuming at her, because just before she left, Serena slept with Blair's boyfriend, Nate (Chace Crawford), who would really like to break up with Blair and try to hook up with Serena, but his dad won't let him because he is trying to set up a business deal with Blair's mom.
Nate's best pal is Chuck (Ed Westwick), who is not merely the Bad Boy, but a full-on creep who attempts rape not once, but twice in the first episode of the show (where the hell does a character go from a beginning like that?). One of Chuck's victims is Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen); she and her brother Dan (Penn Badgely) are the middle-class kids whose dad, a struggling rock musician, barely manages to pay their prep-school tuition, and who are looked down on by all the rich kids.
What else? Let's see, there are hints of a Mysterious Past between the Humphreys' rockin' Dad (Matthew Settle) and Serena's Rich Bitch mom (Kelly Rutherford). There are exactly two non-white kids seen in the first episode, Blair's black and Asian sidekicks, who are allowed an occasional "ohmigod," but are otherwise mute. We mustn't forget Serena's younger brother, hospitalized after a suicide attempts (though mummy has told everyone that he's visiting an aunt in Miami). And the whole thing is narrated by "Gossip Girl" (voice of Kristen Bell), a blogger who shares all the NYC prep-school gossip with her readers, and refers to everyone by their initials ("Spotted sharing drinks at the Palace: B & S, having a heart-to-heart...").
Admittedly, I am not the target audience for this show, what with my age and my IQ both being higher than 40, but even by the low standards that exist for this sort of thing, this is ghastly stuff. The "teenaged" characters are all played by actors who are at least 25; their parents aren't much more than fifteen years older than they are. The acting makes daytime soap opera look subtle and understated; the dialogue is overwrought and melodramatic; everyone is either vile and loathsome, or perfect and saintly. Gossip Girl is an early candidate for the worst new show of the season.
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