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Hercules Has The Juicy Scoop: GOSSIP GIRL Shows Promise!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
It’s a new hourlong, based on the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and adapted by writer-producer Josh Schwartz (who also created “The O.C.” and “Chuck”), about hot, rich, troubled, substance-abusing teens in Manhattan.
“Gossip Girl” has all of “O.C.’s” soapy excess but Schwartz’ other new fall series, NBC’s sci-fi actioner “Chuck,” inherited most of the comedy in the family. And, candidly, it was the humor in netlet chick shows like “Buffy,” “Gilmore Girls” and “Veronica Mars” that kept me tuned.
Having said that, I was in no way bored by and find no strong negatives in the pilot, and I’ll keep “Gossip” on the TiVo’s season-pass list a while – at least until Kristen Bell (who voices the title role on “Gossip”) turns up on “Heroes.” I can’t say most of the fall shows have earned the same shot.
Time says:
… Packing a sharp designer shiv, this clever saga of haves vs. have-mores proves the East Coast can be as enjoyably sudsy as the West. …
Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B” says:
… The cast is as good as the pilot script, and I may not be its target demo, but I admire its fleet pace and sly craft.
USA Today gives it three stars (out of four) and says:
… As is common with teen soaps, the behavior is often more believable than the dialogue and the attitudes. But soap fans will likely be pleasantly surprised by how much Gossip gets right. …
The New York Times says:
… It’s not what the show is missing that misses the point of the books; it’s what it adds — namely parents. …
The Los Angeles Times says:
… although the literary effort may not have quite captured the lush, almost fetishized fascination of prep school youth seen in "The Catcher in the Rye," the television version does. … "Gossip Girl" is eye candy, and mind candy, as pretty as a perfectly prepared martini -- one that some nasty, picture-perfect have-it-all may or may not have drugged. Just for the occasion. …
The Chicago Tribune says:
… there’s no real spark to any of these budding relationships or businesslike friendships, especially given the generally flat acting and bland casting. Sorry, “O.C.” fans, there’s no Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) or Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie) here, nor any of the razor-sharp quippage that could redeem even the most far-fetched or slack stories on that Fox soap. …
The Washington Post says:
… "Gossip Girl," from the teen-addled brain of Josh Schwartz, who served up the canceled "O.C.," carries on the legacy of that West Coast soap opera and perhaps turns it up a notch with both drama and sheer teen-soapy goodness. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… Of course, spying for a blog and reporting on celebrity are very 2007, and so Schwartz and the CW have the zeitgeist angle nailed. But a series can't sustain itself by that alone (can it?). So the main action is pretty much standard soap fare. … It may not be weighty and important television, but it was never intended to be (and it does its job better than its older counterparts on other networks).
The Boston Globe says:
… They're Paristocrats. And, Lord help me, I loved spending an hour hating them, their pedigrees, and their unlimited credit cards. It was like studying the peculiar mating rituals and shopping habits of the species Manhattanus Elitus. …
The Boston Herald says:
… snarky, addictive … Parents won’t love “Gossip Girl,” but teens will find the appeal of rich kids behaving badly irresistible.
The Miami Herald says:
… Welcome to the tawdry, tantalizing and altogether terrific world of Gossip Girl. … If this sounds a little bit like an East Coast version of The O.C., it's because both shows were created by producer Josh Schwartz. He's painting the same picture on a different canvas: kids moving too fast, parents too preoccupied or morally crippled to help, all of it observed by outsiders desperate to make it in a rich kid's world. Clichés, certainly, but Schwartz spins them so creatively, with characters so engaging (or mustache-twirlingly villainous), that the show is irresistible. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
… a fun, juicy mix of popular music and melodrama … One thing "Gossip Girl" lacks in the pilot is a sense or humor. While quickly paced, the tone is somewhat dour. Then again, "The O.C." pilot was much harder than the episodes that followed, so "Gossip Girl" may get giddy yet. …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… so consumed with its of-the-moment zeitgeist embodiment that it forgets to give its characters any depth beyond their reshaped noses. … What's instantly missing from this show that fueled the quick-hit phenomenon of "The O.C." is any sense that these characters are real people. They can be rich and impossible to relate to as long as we believe the veracity of their words and actions. …
Variety says:
… hardly breaks any new ground. Still, with soaps, timing and intangibles can be everything, so as GG would say, "We're all just dying to see what happens next."…
9 p.m. Wedmesday. The CW.
Angel: Complete Series Collector's Set * Battlestar Galactica 1.x [HD-DVD] * Battlestar Galactica: Razor * Chappelle's Show: Complete Series * The Colbert Report: Best Of * Doctor Who 3.x * Dr. Katz: The Complete Series * Entourage 3.x Vol. 2 * The Film Crew: Giant of Marathon * The Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo * Frasier: The Complete Series * Futurama Movie I: Bender's Big Score * Gilmore Girls: The Complete Series * Grey's Anatomy 3.x * How I Met Your Mother 2.x * Jekyll: The Complete Series * Jericho 1.x * Looney Tunes: Golden Collection Vol. 5 * Lost 3.x * The L-Word 4.x * Medium 3.x * Michael Palin: Pole To Pole * MXC: Most Extreme Eliminatiion Challenge 3.x * My So-Called Life: The Complete Series * Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Vol. 12 * Northern Exposure: The Complete Series * The OC: The Complete Series * The Sarah Silverman Program 1.x * Saturday Night Live 2.x * Scrubs 6.x * Seinfeld 9.x * Seinfeld: The Complete Series * Smallville 6.x * Smallville 1.x / Supernatural 1.x * The Sopranos 6.x Vol. 2 * Stargate Atlantis 3.x![](http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aintitcoolcoa-20&l=ur2&o=1" width=)
* Star Trek 1.x [DVD/HD-DVD] * Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Complete Series * Studio 60: The Complete Series * Superman: Doomsday * Supernatural 2.x * Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians; * Twin Peaks: The Complete Series * Two And A Half Men 1.x * The Unit 2.x * Veronica Mars 3.x * The Wire 4.x * The X-Files: Ultimate Collection * Young Indiana Jones Vol. 1
"You know what's interesting
about Matthew Fox?"
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Sep 19, 2007 3:09:26 PM CDT
Kristen Bell is the sexiest tomboy bean pole on the....
by thepurplelantern
Whats the 24 spoiler?
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I'll give it a few more episodes, but nothing other than Kristen Bell's voice is bringing me back. This keeps getting good reviews...am I missing something?
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I saw this when I got it free from iTunes a couple days ago. It was alright, I mean, not great, but not terrible. The three leads are really good, but there's not too much working for it besides that. The show is completely and totally misleading about what that lifestyle is like (I went to one of the types of schools in that same area). There'll be maybe one or two kids like that in the entire school, but I understand that's its supposed to be grandiose and overblown. It still ticks me off though. For a fuller review of this and many others, you can check out levyonteevee.blogspot.com. Shameless plug over...
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But i kinda do. I'll watch the first handful of eps.
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Sep 19, 2007 5:16:11 PM CDT
This show is the televisions second coming of Christ.
by quin the eskimo
I will be there with my palm tree branch.
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sweet, i've been eager to see this one.
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Okay, maybe not, but the show definitely gets points for hiring her as the narrator "gossip girl". Although they abuse this power in an unfortunate manner within the first 6 minutes of the pilot by making do a voice over of a blog she has posted using the eternally annoying "XOXOXO" to end her letter.
Show isn't half bad...not blown away, but it shows a little potential which is more than can be said for other O.C./soap-esque shows the networks have tried in the past few years(The Mountain, Bedford Diaries, North Shore, Six Degrees, Falcon Beach, Beautiful People, Sex Love & Secrets, and many others that no one would remember without searching the cancelled show list on Epguides.com.
The first scene of the show almost sent me packing when I heard Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks" being played. I cannot fucking stand that song already, but I would wager safe money that it appears at least 5 times throughout the fall season's first 3 weeks. -
I admit it I'm already hooked and want to see what happens next.
Sex, underage drinking, Pot smoking, attempted date rape(twice)betrayl, the Parents Television Council (a thinley veiled group of right wing christians) are probably going to have a collective fit when they see this. Good. -
what a bunch of fucking assfaces they are. although i will admit their show descriptions are really really funny. they say shit like outline every profane word ever said on a show, and a bad word to them is "damn" or "hell". if you're ever snowed in or call in sick for work you should check out their absolutely ridiculous website. they've tried to get many shows off the air (south park and nip/tuck come to mind) and claim they don't want their kids to see it. well fuck! if those cocksuckers weren't too busy bitching with their christians online buddies about how awful tv is, they could maybe monitor what the fuck their kids are watching. call me crazy... FUCKERS!
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Is that the one that reviews movies and music? I remember we had some fun posting reviews of a site similar to that in the bathroom stalls in our college dorm. They make for unintentionally hilarious reading. I remember a review they did for a Blink 182 album that said
"That track uses obscenities to blame parents and other adults for the world’s problems. Acts of "Reckless Abandon" range from alcohol abuse and drugging a dog, to defecating in a bathtub and having sex in public. On "The Rock Show," "cool" teens get drunk, fail school, sneak sex and run away to Las Vegas. Equally rebellious, "Give Me One Good Reason" rallies fans to skip class, "p--- people off with what they wear," and hate jocks, preps and hippies. A despondent young man drowns his sorrows in alcohol ("Story of a Lonely Guy"). This disc is riddled with raw language, including anatomical slang and many f-words. A lover’s quarrel leads to a venomous exchange on "Shut Up." The bitter diatribe "Happy Holidays, You Bastard," finds the singer demanding that lewd sex acts be performed on him and ranting about an old man soiling his pants. A disgusting crescendo to a foul project."
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reading this shit is funnier than 90% of what the networks are passing off as comedy these days. -
contains the disclaimer "Don’t let your teens be recruited by Blink-182’s hellish rhetoric." If I disliked Blink 182 I would change my opinion just to spite the reviewer.
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No further comment necessary
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I'm really baffled now. I watched this, and found it to be dull, lifeless, and emotionally empty. My two cents is Kristen Bell should demand a 12 million dollar apology check from the CW. 6 mil for the canceling of Veronica Mars, and the other 6 mil to maek-up for her being involved with this crap. I hope Gordan Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares beats the hell out of this show, forcing this show and all of it's beautiful women actresses to find better jobs, and lose the other awful actors. Overall The CW is just making me mad. I was overlooked for one show, and then screw over other shows.
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I didn't watch the show but from the commercials it looks like everyone in New York City is white. Who knew?
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IT's airing right after Top Model which usually debuts to high ratings. I bet this show will start outrating it's lead in eventually. There are really no prime time soaps geared to teens on network TV unless u count The Hills. The show's actors are pretty good, and it did show promise. But this type of thing isn't for everyone. And I liked Bell's narration.
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And Herc never ages, either. It's like they found some 14-year-old girl who is PERMANENTLY that age and mindset, and gave her the television beat on AICN.
Or maybe there's not just one Herc. Maybe "Herc" is AICN's code-name for whatever 14-year-old girl they picked up to write Coaxial each year. It's a title, not a specific person!
You know who buys the Gossip Girl books? Snotty, bratty, stuck-up, preppy, bitchy, greedy, spoiled, over-priveleged teenage girls. The series is all about how great it is to be popular, and how hard the girls within try to avoid losing their money and popularity.
HERC IS A TEENAGED GIRL, or Herc is a flaming homosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that), or Herc is a hebephile. One of those three things must be true. -
It's the fact that the cast seems so emotionless, expressionless, and the show is just dull. I read elsewhere, most people said the show is vapid and empty. They hit the nail on the head. I honestly can't agree that Top Model does well. I think it's a rousing lie made up by the CW. I don't dare want to find someone who can sanely put up with Tyra's and the other queers on the panel's antics. Tyra has the women look so awful, those women on the show aren't models their mannequins dressed up in the worst clothes and given make-up make-overs by blind people.
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The only thing good to come from that mess is the fact the people get to see how much retouching is done to make print model's look good. It's crazy how ugly some of the contestants are and how nice their pics turn out. And I'm sorry, while I am Latino, I don't co-sign Jaslene winning. She looks like a damn drag queen.
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I love shows about younger people like Veronica Mars of The OC but these people were very hard to identify with and the show seemed to take itself a bit too seriously. It's not even campy fun.
I really can't see going here every week. -
Sure she's model like and hot and all but I just don't buy her as a teenager....maybe cuz she's 20. I wish they'd gotten real teenagers like they did with the OC.
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whereas all the other boroughs contain 95% mud people and criminals. Fuck you CW!
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Seriously, she is hot. Screw Kristen Bell's voice.
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