Gossip Girl (TV Series)

[*boho_chick*]

^he's fun! far less boring than nate for example...

 

[Bellechloe]

hmmmhmm

For some reason, I don't get what Chuck, Serena or Blair see in Nate. He's not a bad character. He's flawed, but for some reason...
I find him so boring.

At least, Chuck-I love his bad guy appeal and Dan's dorkiness is endearing... but Nate is... plain.

you know'? he kindda bores me sooo much too, i mean, he's like so perfect that he does not show any emotion through his face...i don`t know. he is really cute but i don't want him with serena again, i think hes bored..i'd love this character to have some action a background story more interesting than his father's one...i don't know :S

 

[barbiedoitbetter]

Im In Love
NATENATENATE

 

[Deep Brunette]

That article!
Nate's eyes dart stupidly from side to side. He has no idea what show (or drug, for that matter) he's even supposed to be on.

I definitely prefer Dan and Chuck over Nate.

 

[russh_kris_z]

I don't know why all the girls seem to like Chuck. He seems so...... *creepy*

nooo much better than nate

 

[Day]

I don't like Nate or Chuck. I think episodes without them are the strongest.

Dan, however...

 

[Strikingly Chloe]

I wish there was a new episode this week.

 

[carioca]

^
same here.
i'd totally give up halloween to stay in and watch Gossip Girls. shame it wont be on

 

[carioca]

I don't like Nate or Chuck. I think episodes without them are the strongest.

Dan, however...

agree agree agree!!!

 

[Bellechloe]

i agree too..

and i don't know but...don't u think that serena is no as pretty as they say she is?

 

[smartarse]

serena/blake is attractively sexy. she fits the Upper East Side prep school girl.

 

[TheGlassAngel]

I find her very awkward looking but I'm glad that the producers went for a girl who can somewhat act rather than a stunner who can't act her way out of a paper bag

 

[Bellechloe]

i guess u r right

 

[sarah13]

Also Serena is traditionally beautiful. Tall, thin, blond, great body. Blair is more of a quiet beauty.

 

[sarah13]

Would you like for me to post the NY Mag compairison of the other episodes? I didn't want to clog the thread if people were not interested.

 

[*boho_chick*]

^yes!

 

[sarah13]

Okay Here is Episode 1.

‘Gossip Girl’: The Most Important Show of Our Time

Serena Van der Woodsen shoulders a great
responsibility.Photo courtesy the CW

Last night's giddily awaited premiere of Gossip Girl did not disappoint. This is partly because ever since the day Models Inc was cruelly pulled off the air, we have grown to not expect much from television. But it's also because in many ways, Gossip Girl was the show we've been waiting for our entire lives: Dynasty meets Harriet the Spy meets Beverly Hills 90210 meets Melrose Place. Of course the show it most resembles is Sex and the City (although, since this show is about teenagers, does that make it Statutory r*pe in the City?). For all its flaws, Sex and the City was a New York show. Even though they wore unforgivable outfits, the SATC characters did things real women their age and socioeconomic class in New York did — they ate cupcakes at Magnolia, had brunch at Pastis, went to Bloomie Nails. As cringe-making as it is to admit, those four b*tches represented a breed of New York woman. Can we expect Gossip Girl to do the same for Upper East Side teenagers? From the first episode, we're not entirely sure.
Below is our list of things we found gloriously implausible — and uncomfortably plausible — in last night's pilot episode, rated on our completely subjective point system:
That's a Bit Rich
• Blake Lively as a high-school senior. -5 accuracy points. Seriously, chick has got to be at least 30. What is this? A new season of Strangers With Candy?
• Formal invitations — on paper — are issued for the "Kissing on the Lips Party." -2. Real kids use Evite.
• Nate: "Do you ever feel like our lives are planned out for us?" -3. 17-year-olds are about as self-reflective as Saran Wrap.
• Blair" "Waldorf" and "Serena Van der Woodsen"? Who has names like that? Oh, yeah. Lead actress Blake Lively and Gossip Girl creator–apocalyptical horsewoman Cecily von Ziegesar. -1 anyway for absurdity.
• Scene: Blair and Serena meet at the Palace Hotel, drink martinis up with olives. -2. ("Nooo, we don't have a lot of private-school kids at our bar," says Melissa Blair, the hostess at Gilt, the Palace's bar. [Gilt! Which is a false cognate of the emotion Serena feels about sleeping with Nate! Symbolism!] They have been filming at the Palace though, Blair told New York. In fact, she saw them filming a scene yesterday. End of parenthetical.)
• Blair, wearing a corset and waiting in a candlelit room for a rendezvous with Nate. -2. Teenage sex is awkward, no matter how much money you wrap it in.
• The kids take over a huge club (that at times looks like the meatpacking district's Level V and at other times like the sound studio that it is) for a party where prodigious amounts of alcohol is served. Club owners and parents are in the know. -1. There are still LAWS in this city, people.
• Serena and Nate have sex on the bar of the empty Campbell Apartment. -2. Dude, that place is always filled with bankers.
Total: -18 points
Okay, We'll Buy It
• Nate and Valmont smoking a joint in Central Park. +1. Who hasn't?
• Chuck joking semi-seriously about borrowing his dad's Viagra. Do real teenagers do that? Probably. +1, but ew.
• Attempted date r*pe. See above re: teenage sex. +8.
• "Dancing on tables at Bungalow." After its steady decline in recent years, the high-school crowd is right about where that place is at these days. +8.
Total: +18 points. It's all even!
We consulted some recent graduates of the New York private-school world to arrive at these tallies, and unless the current crop of teenagers in the city were born in hell, with fake I.D.'s, they agreed on the scores. Stay tuned, for next week's episode, which we are really hoping is a little more outrageous. We almost bought some of this one!
Related: Gossip Girl creator Josh Schwartz explains what went wrong with his previous show, The O.C.
Update: A very alert (and very correct) young reader emailed us to point out: "evite? please. real kids use facebook." So true! We have never felt more old or irrelevant. Also, to all of those of you who complained that actress Blake Lively is not actually 30, we're sorry our sarcasm was not clear: she just looks that old. And when she gets around to dating Cisco Adler, we'll tack on a few years to

 

[sarah13]

Episode 2

‘Gossip Girl’ Goes Straight to the ‘O.C.’ Place

Photo Courtesy the CW

"Good Morning, Upper East Siders." In case you forgot, on the second episode of Gossip Girl, otherwise known as Statutory r*pe in the City, the anonymous narrator really drums it in that this show is based in Manhattan, more specifically Upper East Side. "We Upper East Siders don't do lazy," she says at one point. And, after the social volcano erupts at The Big Brunch (the show has adopted the O.C. construct of always ending with a Big Event), she adds: "Some people might call this a flustercluck. On the Upper East Side, we call it Sunday." Yeah, that's right. Flustercluck. The glory of Gossip Girl is in its implausibility. But even we have to recognize that there are some things that are painfully real about the show. After the jump is the list of things we found completely absurd — and strangely true-to-life — in the show's sophomore episode, rated on our completely subjective point system:


Okay, We'll Buy It
• According to lady narrator (Veronica Mars!), on the Upper East Side, "Breakfast is brunch, and it comes with Champagne, a dress code, and a hundred of our closest friends." For New Yorkers we know, brunch comes with a hangover, your outfit from last night, and the sh*ts. But we'd like to have it their way! +3. Just because it's important to recognize there's no such thing as "lunch" on the weekends.
• Serena is staying at the Palace. Brunch is at the Palace. Chuck and Nate wake up in the Palace. Chuck owns the Palace. If everything on this show is about the Upper East Side, why are they all hanging out at a hotel in midtown? +2, for recognizing that kids actually do venture outside of their neighborhoods.
• The Humphreys are hip and artsy, you know? So they live in Williamsburg. But do real adults with kids live there? We're not so sure. Transition shots before scenes at their loft show the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge, which we believe a bit more. Living in Dumbo but saying you live in Williamsburg makes much more sense. +4, for real-estate emotional conflict.
• Rihanna is constantly playing, in every situation. + 5.
Total: 14.
That's a Bit Rich
• During the recap of what happened last week, we have a delayed reaction to something. Apparently we're to believe that after her indiscretion with Nate, Serena went straight off to Connecticut and enrolled herself in boarding school. Is that even possible? Doubtful. Even Hotchkiss is not that accommodating to the rich. [Valerie Burke, who works in admissions at Hotchkiss, says they never admit students mid-year, even the superrich and perfectly blonded. "We only have so many dorm beds, and we fill them."] - 3
• Blair descends her staircase in full Mae West garb. She's wearing a translucent dressing gown with bell sleeves and mules and what appears to be one of Alexis Carrington's old teddies. Again with Blair and the lingerie! Maybe the show's stylists think they are really getting at the motivation of the character — fancy undies are yet another way Blair is trying to hold the interest of Nate! Interesting. But back to reality: New York teenagers may buy their undies at Agent Provocateur, but do they wear them when lying around the house alone? - 7, for wishful thinking.
• Serena's mother visits Papa Humphrey in Williamsburg for we're not sure why. We're also not sure why there are trees in this Williamsburg. The real Williamsburg has very few trees. Life simply does not thrive there. Neither do adolescents, see above. - 4
• Okay, so now Blair is wearing a corset and ruffled boy shorts. Someone at the CW needs to read this book. - 3
• Right, and every single thing that happened involving the plot. -11
Total: 28
So that all adds up to -14 reality points! Last week it came out even. This is a vast improvement!

 

[TopazNYC]

^^ LOLOLOL- What a great article!!!

 

[sarah13]

Episode 3

‘Gossip Girl’ Embraces Friendships, Reality

Photo Courtesy the CW

When last we left Gossip Girl, Serena and Blair had just made up in Central Park. It was a glorious scene: fantastic outfits, fraught dialogue, rain pouring down — that showed their range. Well, Blair's range, anyway. And just like that, their major feud was over. This week, the bon-mot-tossing, label-wh*ring pair is all Stila-slicked smiles. Which is too bad for us, because the show known in some circles as Jeffrey Epstein's Wet Dream just got picked up for a full season, and what's it going to be about if not Blair and Serena calling each other sluts and battling it out in field-hockey uniforms? That said, it is a smidge realistic for two teenage girls who have been fighting for months and months to one day suddenly be besties again, isn't it? And that's what this recap is all about, right? Realism! Because if Gossip Girl is to live up to those that came before it, the greats like Dallas, Melrose Place, Sex and the City … in short, if it wants to win over the hearts and souls and disposable income of a generation of aspirational young women, it had best represent — or at least preserve the essence of — the lives of actual Upper East Side teenagers. Which is why we're keeping tabs on each episode. Below, our guide to what seemed passably real in episode four: 'Bad News Blair' and what came across faker than a Fendi purse at public school.

Passable Imitation
• Blair goes to Tiffany's*. "Moon River" is playing the background, and she's dressed in full Holly Golightly going on: black dress, pearls. Her hair looks kind of heinous though. She looks in the window and sees Serena, being served tea by Nameless Asian Friend and Nameless Black Friend, each of whom is wearing French maid outfits. Blair tries to get in to join them, but the doorman won't let her in! Serena's having all the fun while Blair's locked out. But wait: Cut to Blair in bed, pulling off her satin eye mask. It’s a dream. We were going to give this a Minus 2, because no one has dreams that are this obvious and only gay twentysomethings wear satin eye masks, but instead we're giving it a Plus 1 for the casually racist minorities-in-uniform thing. An Upper East Side princess would totally dream that.
• Blair's mom eyes her when Blair picks up a croissant. "Before you tuck into that, you might find the low-fat yogurt more appealing," she says. Oh, hell yes. We all know that kind of mom. Plus 6.
• Serena and Blair go shopping in Nolita. We're to assume that this is Serena's idea, because she's such a free spirit, and also because Blair is so weird about it: "It's called Nolita, not no showers," she says. Then, when Dan Humphrey shows up, Blair flounces off, saying, "When you're done with your charity work, I'll be at Tory Burch looking at … ponchos." Plus 2. Nolita may have $400 jeans and Hollywould flats, but to uptowners, it's still kind of like visiting another country. And, a bonus Plus 1 for the swipe at TB.
• Suited men leer at Blair and Serena. Plus 5. It would be more if homeless men leered, too.
• Nate and Chuck are surprised when their old friend Carter Bazin, who shrugged off his life of privilege for the privilege of bumming around the globe with a digital camera, strolls into their annual "Lost Weekend" party (more on that later). Where's Carter been all this time? "Yeah, I did some reconstruction work post-Katrina," he says, rubbing his stubble. "Spent a year in Machu Picchu. It changed my life, man." Ha! Plus 10. The Baja shirt is a little much, but this guy is a total archetype. Also, Plus 2 for Chuck's amazing line, "He looks like Matthew McConaughey between movies."
• During the extremely cool "Lost Weekend," we catch the boys doing outrageously uncommon things like playing Wii Boxing and going to the Lower East Side to play basketball in ridiculous outfits. Plus 2, because that's actually just what we'd expect from UES boys. Especially the ridiculous basketball outfits.
• Nate, when deciding to ditch his friends for the scary poker game, has to use his BlackBerry to figure out where Queens is. Plus 2.
• Near the end, when Serena is setting up a date with a skeptical Dan Humphrey, she says, "I'm hanging up before thou dost protest again!" Plus 3, because really, what teenage girl in the city doesn't think at some point that she's Julia Stiles?
Total: Plus 34
Obviously Fake
• The boys of St. Jude's celebrate getting through Ivy Week with the annual "Lost Weekend" party. It's at the Palace, of course, and since Chuck owns it, he gets to be the host. Before everyone gets there, he locks up his Piaget watch and a baseball he says belonged to Babe Ruth. "The only girls you talk to are the ones I paid for," he instructs the roomful of dudes when they arrive. Minus 6. One point off because after Duke and everything, it seems kind of doubtful that teenagers still pay prostitutes to come to parties. And the other five because Chuck so does not give a sh*t about Babe Ruth.
• Um, has anybody else noticed that studly Mr. Humphrey looks about five years older than his son? Minus only 1, because in real life the actors are seventeen years apart, which you know, is gross but possible.
• After Blair freaks out because her mommy doesn't love her, Dan sits down and they have a heart-to-heart, because his mommy doesn't love him either. Even though they hated each other at the beginning, they bond, and by the end, they're besties too! No, no, no, no. Minus 10. This is exactly the kind of scene that f*cks up nerdy teenage boys completely. They think they can be all sensitive and kind, and girls like Blair ignore them in public and tell their friends how creepy and stalkerish they are.
• With his chiseled cheekbones and perpetually deer-in-the-headlights expression, Nate is probably the dumbest character on television. When he loses his high-stakes poker game with a bunch of glaring Russian dudes, he actually expects he can write them a check. When Chuck saves him, he does it with a concerned air, like someone charged with looking after an Alzheimer's patient. Minus 3, because beautiful rich people are at least a little smart. Right?
• Michelle Hurd plays Blair's mom's stylist. Um, duh. She's actually a detective in the NYPD Special Victims Unit. Everyone knows that. Minus 1.
Total: Minus 21
So in the end, we're thirteen points on the realistic side. And we didn't even get into the fashion-shoot stuff ("You're Britney with the umbrella! Posh in America!"). This episode was practically cinéma vérité!

Earlier: Intel's Previous Coverage of Gossip Girl
* Wait! An astute reader who maybe didn't drink three glasses of wine during last night's episode has informed us that it was actually not Tiffany's in the opening scene, but Bergdorf Goodman. Thank you!
* Hang on! ANOTHER Gossipmonger just said told us the store in Blair's dream was not BG, but Bendel! This actually makes more sense, because Bendel was the store buying Blair's mom's clothing line. Also, it would make Blair an actual PSYCHIC instead of just a girl whose problems are so minimal she has really simpleminded dreams, which is interesting. Our DVR is failing is so we can't put an end to this important debate. Email us to let us know what store it looked like to you: [email protected]. Or, better yet: Email us during the episode next time you spot a discrepancy.