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The Show:
It's the show that everyone is talking about, yet no one watching. It's consistently found at the bottom of the Nelson Ratings scan, yet is one of the most popular shows of the '07/'08 television season. It's a series that should be borderline cancellation, yet has found that its stars are nearing household names. So what exactly is the juicy secret behind Gossip Girl, the CW teen-soap and current television anomaly that has become a cultural phenomenon despite a lack of viewership? Ironically, the answer is the Internet - the very tool that has caused drama for the show's characters, has proven to be the saving grace for its actors. Which begs the question - why is Gossip Girl the best show that no one is watching, but everyone's seen?
From the brainchild of The OC creator, Josh Schwartz, and based on the best selling series of the same name, Gossip Girl has become known as the show that is constantly testing parental authoritative boundaries seemingly without doing anything at all. The show's marketing campaign puts good use to the old mantra, "Any press is good press", by covering it's television spots, posters, and other promotional materials with the show's worst reviews; one TV spot cuts risqué images together before slapping the review on the screen: "Every parents worst nightmare...mind blowing inappropriate." Yet, Gossip Girl stamps on these warnings with a deliciously, carefree pride, reflecting the very attitudes of the teenagers it documents (and targets as a demographic).
The "story" revolves around Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively) whom, after a mysterious 6 month disappearance, returns to her old stomping grounds of New York's Upper East Side. However, the social hierarchy has continued on without her, and Serena finds that her former BFF (that's "Best Friend Forever" for those non-new millennial readers) Blair Waldorf (played to delightful perfection by Leighton Meester) has moved on. Serena's return is a surprise to all, including Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), Blair's boyfriend who has always housed a secret love for Serena (and may be one of the reasons she split from town), and Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), the Brooklyn living art-house outsider who has always loved Serna from afar. Soon enough, Serena's return is the news heard around town, thanks to the show's titular anonymous blogger, GossipGirl (voiced by Kristin Bell of Veronica Mars fame), who announces each juicy piece of New York socialite gossip via cell phone texts, emails, and other youth-oriented tools - a new-age Deep Throat for the online generation. While we find out one reason for Serena's sudden disappearance in the show's pilot, the narrative arc cryptically teases us with various clues as to why it was that Serena left town under such mysterious circumstances. By the finale, no one will be left unscathed, and no secret left unearthed.
As is true with most shows of this kind, that doesn't even begin to break into the plot of Gossip Girl; there are many more characters, far more plot points, too many more surprises, and not nearly enough space to explain why exactly it's so much fun. Part of that comes in Gossip Girl's confidence to be what it is. Josh Schwartz is far wiser this time around when delving into the pool of teen soap opera. While the melodrama of The OCwould often hit dizzying heights of self-obsessed seriousness, Gossip Girl stays delightfully secure in its sudsy, over-the-top nature, nearing ironic self-reflexivity in its toying with the typical teen archetype.
Gossip Girl doesn't bother answering any of the inevitable questions, like how these teenagers get into bars and are served alcohol without ever being carded. But the show's beauty lies in its ability to find solace in being unquestionably campy. Not the camp of our televisual forefathers (which went 'zany and slapstick' as opposed to confined and thought-provoking), but a camp that comes from years of watching prior incarnations. Only by having seen the other teen melodramas rise (and inevitably fall) is Gossip Girl really able to thrive. Take for instance a scene where Serena finally admits the season long secret of why she fled New York. As opposed to infusing her confession with a dramatic violin score, the moment is instead interrupted with a jagged snippet of The Kills' "U.R.A. Fever", a base heavy electric guitar synth that takes the show to an exciting sugar infused high before abruptly cutting to black - that's Gossip Girl, a show which may not pave way for new material, but will handle what's been done before with candy-eyed fun severely lacking from a genre many consider to be low-brow art.
Yet, the question must be asked - is Gossip Girl really as envelop pushing as it not only promises, but believes itself to be? Not exactly. There isn't anything here that you haven't already seen on the broad spectrum of teen programming that dates as far back as Beverly Hill 90210, to the present day...90210; Underage drinking, illegal drug use, premarital sex - plot points as old as the very people that condemn them, and the sins that they stand against. But no show handles the subject matter with as coy a wink or strong an awareness as Gossip Girl. While its predecessors opt to take their material with ho-hum seriousness, Gossip Girl instead paves a grand sandbox for its plots to play in. And as viewers, we are eternally grateful.
The DVD:
Warner Brothers' new DVD packaging (last seen with the July release of Birds Of Prey) is a godsend for DVD fans quickly running out of space. Housed in a traditional digi-pack which slied comfortably into a cardboard slipcover, the season's18 episodes are spread out over 5 discs, with two trays holding a disc on each side, and the 5 disc secured on the inside of the back cover. The cover art resembles the book covers of the show's source material, with the disc art showing the characters in various pairings.
The menu design for Gossip Girl, however, is some of the most unnecessarily repetitive of any DVD in recent memory. Designed to look like the titular GossipGirl's own website, the menu has a 'home', 'go', and 'lingo' selection along the top. The 'go' plays all the episodes consecutively, with 'lingo' displaying the various spoken languages and subtitle options. Along the side of the home screen, there is yet another 'go' option, and a list of all the episodes of the disc (4 episodes per disc, with the exception of disc 5, which houses the last two episodes and most of the shows bonus features. In the center of the home screen, the episodes are listed once again, this time with a image on the side, a minor summary of the episode, and the option to watch deleted scenes if the episode has any. Why we're given multiple ways to select episodes or play them all is beyond me, but at least the menus go the extra mile in trying to emulate the world of GossipGirl.
The Video:
Gossip Girl - The Complete First Season is shot and presented in widescreen, with image quality looking constantly sharp and clear. Aside from some barley noticeable grain during night scenes, most of the show's colors pop and hold up remarkably well in the DVD translation.
The Audio:
The audio (or 'Lingo' as it's known) on Gossip Girl - The Complete First Season is a strong (if not spectacular) mixing in Dolby Surround 5.1. The music and sound effects are always sharp, with the dialogue never being lost within the cacophony of the New York City streets.A second audio track dubbed in Portuguese is mixed 2.0, with the DVD also providing subtitle options in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and Thai.
The Extras:
Gossip Girl - The Complete First Season has a fairly decent amount of bonus features, beginning with Deleted Scenes that are spread out amongst the 5 discs with each episode they are associated with. Some of the scenes are more substantial than others (such as a scene in which Blair's eating disorder is reveled - a scene which was eventually added into another episode), with some lasting mere seconds.
The rest of the bonus features are all housed on disc 5, beginning with a promo for Season 2 (beginning Monday, September 1st), and a movie called The Clique. The Beginning, XOXO: Concept To Execution is a short half-hour documentary about the birth of the series, from adapting the books to casting to even moving to the production from Los Angeles to New York City itself. Everyone from creator Josh Schwartz, to the cast and crew, to even Cecily Von Ziegesar, the writer of the original series, are interviewed and offer interesting-enough tidbits about the show.
Gossip Girl Couture is a 15 minute featurette about the fashion of the show, and breaks down the stylistic elements of each characters wardrobe, and how it gives insight into their given personalities. A Gossip Girl Wedding is probably the worst feature on the disc, as it simply shows how the big wedding in the season finale was created. No real insight is given, making this 6-minute feature nothing more than a fluff piece.
LOL: Gag Reel is a series of bloopers with the cast and crew, and runs about 12 minutes. Finally, disc 5 adds an option to the top of the menu called 'Tunes', which gives you two music videos by the Pierces, "Boring" and "Secret", the later which is compiled of scenes from the season, as well as clips of their own performance in an episode of the show. We're also given the option to hear (or download to a computer) a free audio-book of the first Gossip Girl novel, as read by Christina Ricci. The package also comes with a 12-page booklet that features an episode guide (with deleted scenes indicator), cast list with photos, and plenty of those scandalous reviews displayed throughout.
Final Thoughts:
OMFG. When the only appropriate word to describe a show isn't even a word at all (in fact, it's barely a certified acronym), you know you have officially reached the supposed television wasteland of teen programming. But there is something about Gossip Girl - the delightfully disobedient soap opera about Manhattan's Upper East Side and the teenagers whom inhabit it - that seems not only comfortable in being covered in that very decadent dirt, but actually appears to enjoy it. As a DVD package, the set is fairly well put together, with a solid transfer and fairly good extras. As a show, Gossip Girl might be something of an acquired taste. Your feelings about Gossip Girl will depend on just how guilty you are willing to feel about your guilty pleasures. It can be fairly entertaining to watch adults throw around money, attitude, and alcohol on soap operas; it can be grotesque to see teenagers doing the same things. But that double standard doesn't change the fact that it exists, and Gossip Girl seems confident enough to present it without fail or fear. Gossip Girl - The Complete First Season isn't high-brow art, nor is it television at its best. In fact, there isn't any new revelation that hasn't been seen in other teen shows of a similar kind. But there is an undeniable humor that the material is handled with, and maybe in the end, that's enough. In fact, that might be this generation's idea of originality - old ideas handled with new awareness. Highly Recommended |
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