Product Description
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Gossip Girl:S1 (DVD)
Based on the best-selling series of young-adult novels by Cecily
von Ziegesar and executive produced by Josh Schwartz ("Chuck,"
"The O.C.") & Stephanie Savage ("The O.C."), "Gossip Girl" is a
one-hour drama based on the lives of privileged Manhattan prep
school teens. The students first learn that Serena van der
Woodsen, once the Upper East Side's most notorious party girl, is
back in town the way they learn all the important news in their
lives: from the blog of the all-knowing albeit ultra-secretive
Gossip Girl.
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Gossip Girl is a delicious not-too-guilty pleasure, a visual
feast of couture and perfectly coiffed hair. The elite
high-schoolers of New York's Upper East Side throw red-carpet
parties, live in five-star hotels, and plot dastardly deeds
against each other. Their actions are reported--and often
exposed--by an omniscient presence known as Gossip Girl (voiced
by Kristen Bell), an anonymous Web master who posts updates via
her blog and text messages to the student body. Her primary
target is the social circle of Serena van der Woodsen (Blake
Lively, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and Blair Waldorf
(Leighton Meester), best frenemies who lean on each other (save
for the occasional throwdown). The show opens as Serena returns
from a semester at boarding school, determined to put her
hard-partying ways behind her. But she's chock full of secrets,
one of which is that before her abrupt transfer she'd slept with
Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), Blair's boyfriend. In season
one, Blair becomes embroiled in her own triangle between Nate and
slimy womanizer Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick); the two guys also
happen to be best friends. Serena, meanwhile, steps into a
romance with studious Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), an aspiring
writer on scholarship whose rocker dad (Matthew Settle) once
dated Serena's gold-digging mom (Kelly Rutherford, Melrose
Place)--got all that?
Based on the teen novels by Cecily von Ziegesar, the show
doesn't present any new ideas (the richer the parent, the worse
the parenting, etc.), but the snappy dialogue and pop culture
name-checking are perfectly delivered. Most intriguing are the
power struggles to be "queen bee," a title Blair relishes, as
Dan's freshman sister Jenny (Taylor Momsen, a.k.a. Cindy Lou Who
from The Grinch) learns the hard way the price of joining her
clique. While the high-school series of the '90s (Beverly Hills,
90210, Saved by the Bell) had the popular gang scolding each
other for drug use and embracing nerds and outcasts alike--a
well-intentioned but unrealistic premise--Gossip Girl, like The
O.C. before it (both shows were created by Josh Schwartz)
features grittier storylines with drugs and alcohol flowing
freely in the background and the cliques making no apologies for
snubbing anyone who doesn't summer in the Hamptons. Meester is
the standout of the cast, with strong support from the rest, but
if you're looking for teenage role models, these kids ain't it.
For everyone else, to quote Gossip Girl's signature line, "You
know you love me. XOXO." --Ellen A. Kim