The series has an interesting mix of characters. Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), is the former “It girl” who, before the show began, had suddenly left Manhattan for a boarding school of her own accord for reasons unknown until the end of the first season, thereby straining relations with her best friend, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), the Queen Bee. Despite appearances, life is not perfect in Blair’s world–her father left her mother for a male model who worked for her mother and Blair continues to struggle with bulimia.
Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford) struggles with the pressure from his parents to attend Dartmouth College, when he really wants to attend college in California. Further, his father has a crippling cocaine addiction as his mother remains in denial about the cracks forming in their perfect world. Nate’s best friend since childhood, Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), only serves to furl his insecurities. Lacking any sense of morality, Chuck doesn’t think twice about hurting others, if it means getting what he wants.
Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) is the outsider. He is only part of this privileged world because he has a partial scholarship to attend St. Jude’s, the same exclusive school Chuck and Nate attend. His younger sister Jenny (Taylor Momsen) struggles to find a way to fit in at Constance Billard, the same exclusive school attended by Serena and Blair. Unbeknownst to the Humphrey children, their former rock star father turned art gallery owner, Rufus Humphrey (Matthew Settle) has a secret history with Serena’s mother, socialite Lillian van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford), who was once a groupie.
Each episode of Gossip Girl is narrated through the eyes of the omniscient yet unseen character called “Gossip Girl” (voiced by Kristen Bell); this inconspicuous person runs a popular gossip commentary blog which holds the attention of all major characters on the show as she brings up-to-the-minute talk about the Upper East Side social scene. Cell phones are abuzz each time “Gossip Girl” has new information to share, or new pictures to reveal.
As the series begins, “Gossip Girl” is busy spreading the news that “it girl” Serena van der Woodsen has returned to Manhattan after a mysterious and self-imposed exile to boarding school. Unfortunately, Serena’s best friend, Blair Waldorf has enjoyed being the Queen Bee during Serena’s absence and might not be ready to relinquish her new position on the social ladder. Meanwhile, Blair’s relationship with Nate Archibald begins to go sour after he admits to having had sex with Serena before she left for boarding school in Connecticut.
Ostracized from her group of friends at school, Serena finds a friend in Dan Humphrey. Admittedly, the pairing seems odd. Serena is from old money, while Dan lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where his father struggles to make a living. Despite those differences, Dan and Serena begin what appears to be a pretty strong relationship. Serena enjoys going to pool halls and hanging out at Dan’s Brooklyn loft, and Dan is extremely supportive when Serena reveals that her younger brother Eric (Connor Paolo) has been in the hospital because of a suicide attempt.
Meanwhile, Dan’s sister Jenny is doing everything she can to get accepted into Blair’s group of friends. Doing up invites to Blair’s parties, changing her looks, even almost getting raped by Chuck Bass. It soon becomes clear that Jenny isn’t the cute, innocent girl she first appeared to be. When it comes down to it, “Little J” might be just as manipulative as any one of those Upper East Siders.
Not to be outdone, the adults on Gossip Girl aren’t group of wallflowers. All season long, Lillian van der Woodsen and Rufus Humphrey have been struggling with their lingering feelings for each other since they broke up twenty years before. At Serena’s request, Lily promised not to pursue a relationship with Rufus because of her relationship with Dan. Instead, in the season finale, Lily married Bart Bass (Robert John Burke), Chuck’s father, making this her fourth marriage. It was later revealed that Rufus and Lily slept together the night before her wedding, so you can bet that’s not the end of that situation.
In some ways, because I’m in my mid-thirties, Gossip Girl reminds me of the original Beverly Hills 90210. Of course, things have been ratcheted up a bit because this 2008–the sex scenes are a bit more explicit, technology plays a major role in the show–but there are a lot of things about Gossip Girl that are reminiscent of the things that attracted me to 90210 while I was in college, and later Melrose Place. There’s something fun about watching a group of people who seem to have it all, struggling to keep it all together. All the manipulation, backstabbing, bed hopping and social climbing just makes for a fun hour of entertainment.
The five disc DVD set is presented in “matted” widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio of its original television exhibition and has been enhanced for widescreen TV’s. The audio is presented in Dolby Surround Sound 5.1. Audio is available in English and Portuguese (Portuguese is delivered in Dolby Surround Stereo.) Subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean & Thai for the hearing impaired.
Gossip Girl – The Complete First Season comes loaded with a fairly impressive array of special features. Things begin with several unaired scenes scattered throughout the eighteen episodes. Then, there are three featurettes. The first, “The Beginning, XOXO: Concept to Execution” is a nearly thirty minute featurette about how Gossip Girl came to be. Novelist Cecily von Ziegesar gives her thoughts on how she developed the books and then executive producers and writers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage discuss how they turned the novels into a series. Next, the casting director discusses how each cast member got the part. Finally, there are interviews with various cast members discussing getting the part and how they play their characters. This featurette was remarkable informative, and if you’ve ever been curious how a series gets made from pitch to broadcast, you might want to start here. Next, is “Gossip Girl Couture,” a fifteen minute look at the fashions and designs that are so important to the look of Gossip Girl. This one features interviews with the costume designer and other cast and crew. The final featurette, “A Gossip Girl Wedding,” is a five minute look into the work that went into creating the wedding between Lily van der Woodsen and Bart Bass in the season finale.
The set also includes “LOL: Gag Reel, over eleven minutes of bloopers and flubs by the cast, a couple of music videos by The Pierce’s and a downloadable audio book of the original best-selling novel read by Christina Ricci. I have to say, I downloaded the book to my iPod and it’s excellent. I personally have never read any of the novels, but Ricci’s interpretation is pure fun.
