Lock up your 13-year- olds. Better yet, observe “Gossip Girl” with them and proceed to deconstruct.
The series, Wednesdays on CW (8 p.m. on Channel 2) is based on the premise that bad girls are really just misunderstood, Internet blogs are essential modes of conversation, spoiled children of super-privilege are to be emulated and gossip is akin to oxygen.
Or, as the tagline has it, “You’re nobody until you’re talked about.”
Josh Schwartz, who nailed the California version of beautiful, precocious party babes with “The O.C.,” brings his studied gaze to the entitled youth of New York, specifically the Upper East Side of Manhattan, doorman division, where school means prep and shopping means Bendels.
Worried grown-ups loathe it, but really, this is smart young-adult soap opera, tapping “the zitgeist.” It’s slightly better than the violent video games that beckon adolescent male fantasies. Here, there are moral points to be scored between catfights.
The adaptation of the popular novels of Cecily von Ziegesar is of the moment, embellishing the seductions of young adulthood onscreen from school uniforms to little black cocktail dresses.
Cocktail dresses on high school seniors? Believe it. The urban fantasies in this Upper East Side fairy tale are hormonally driven, exploiting rampant curiosity about the mysteries of adulthood. These princesses-in-waiting ride in limousines rather than horse-drawn pumpkins. They connect using the latest technology, IM-ing and uploading photos from cellphones to the website of the title voice-over character.
While technology has progressed from the days of “Cinderella,” the maturity level of the audience has not. The show is strictly fantasyland for 99 percent of the audience, a voyeuristic look at the super-
wealthy in Manhattan. It’s a prelude to “The Devil Wears Prada” or “The Nanny Diaries.”
Grab your BFF (“best friends forever,” natch) and wallow.
“Gossip Girl” follows the teen-soap formula, creating a world where parental characters are checked out, mired in divorces or consumed with dating angst and mostly oblivious to their offspring. Just as wise daughter had to steer ditzy mother through serial crises in “Gilmore Girls,” the kids have to look out for goofy Dad and materialistic Mom.
Meanwhile there’s an almost date-rape amid the underage drinking. No wonder the kids are stressed.
At the center of the story is a nasty pseudo- friendship between rich hotties Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester). And then there’s the emerging triangle with Blair’s handsome boyfriend, Nate Archiblaid (Chace Crawford), who may be more interested in Serena. Note the names of the cast are almost as Richie Rich- sounding as the names of their characters.
In Wednesday’s pilot, the catfight was at a late-night club. Next week, it’s a fundraiser brunch. Don’t they ever stay home to sharpen their claws in front of the TV?
Bad boy Chuck (Ed Westwick) is the snooty, dangerous, preppy, metrosexual-wannabe. He’s a lech-in-training, the darkest character in the pilot, but rather one-dimensional. If the characters are ever to be as compelling as those of Orange County, they’ll have to reveal more facets.
As in “The O.C.,” the middle-class outsiders are the more sympathetic characters. These kids may turn out to be the coolest ones in the (virtual) room after all.
So far, there’s no Adam
Brody equivalent, no accessible everyman through whom to witness the mess of other lives. That function is left to the unseen narrator, voiced by Kristin Bell (“Veronica Mars”), whose onscreen presence we may already miss.
“Gossip Girl” is more than a cautionary tale – it’s an update on classic pubescent fantasies, complete with cellphone as essential body extension, distilling New York to a connected circle of hyper-privileged teens.
When it’s good, it’s very, very good at young-adult fantasy, “Dynasty” for the college- prep crowd. And when it’s bad, it’s horrid. Good reason to watch defensively, as a family.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
