Gossip Girl 1.1

[meganbmoore]

Yes, I, too, have fallen victim to seeing whether or not Chuck Bass's clothing is worse than anything kdramas can come up with.  So far, kdramas are still winning.

So, uhm, this is about as far from anything I normally watch as it gets.  But Certain People Who Shall Remain Nameless (calixa and oxymoronassoc) spent about 6 months talking to me about it nonstop.

But you know, I actually find spoiled and backstabbing rich kids more entertaining than the angsty "my parents are evil and expect so much" rich kids/a-bit-older-than-kids that are so popular in manga and doramas.

Main thoughts:

1.  Wait, Kelly Rutherford is old enough to be playing the mother of a teenager now?  Did she have Serena at 13?  (Yeah, I have no idea how old KR is, but I still think of her in her 90s roles.)

2.  Were Serena and Blair male, 15 shipper communities dedicated to their foeyay would have been created within two hours of the pilot airing.

3.  Blair is kinda scary.  Serena is kinda scary.  Should they join forces, I would recommend a mass evacuation.

4.  Jenny shall be eaten alive.

5.  Chuck and Nate are clearly far too rich to be riding the public school bus.  Surely there were cleverer ways to introduce Dan?

6.  Within 48 hours, Chuck attempted to rape both Dan's crush and his sister.  I'm amazed he didn't "fall off the roof."

7.  Dan and Serena are kinda cute.  This no doubts means that they are either Doomed, or things will happen to annoy me.

8.  Nate is pretty, but kinda bland.  Like, the actor is blandly cute and the character is really bland.  I fail to understand what either Blair or Serena sees in him.

9.  Blair should not be trying to have sex with Nate because she's worried he likes someone else.  Excuse me, please, while I go explain "self-respect" to her.

10.  Dan's dad used to date Serena's mom!  It really is a kdrama!  I hope the last time they had sex was no less than 2 years prior to any of the  kids being born.

11. I'm kinda sad that I currently hate Chuck's wannabe-rapist-self.  Curiosity about one of his storylines (or more accurately, who he's later paired with) was one of the main things that seduced me to the dark side.

12.  Why does the cover of the DVD set have Jenny hanging off the arm of the guy who tried to rape her?  I mean, I can see Serena being comfortable around Chuck again (she could probably hit almost as hard as Dan), but not Jenny. 

13.  Jenny will be like Dawn in Buffy, where I won't love her, but won't get why everyone else hates her, won't she?
 
Even though I kinda am spoiled, no spoilers!

P.S.:  Hey, I already had a Gossip Girl tag!  (I have no idea what for.  Maybe a picspam of Chuck's clothes?)

Comments

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

2. Were Serena and Blair male, 15 shipper communities dedicated to their foeyay would have been created within two hours of the pilot airing.

AHAHAHAHA! As it is, there are only 12. You underestimate the femslashers.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I'm replying here...

This show has oddly grown on me. I have zero idea why I started watching, I think it was for Kristen Bell's voiceover (I know, I know, I need help...) but now I...kinda like it.

Like you, SO very far from what I normally watch. Even when it comes to normal people shows, I can't stand rich kids, doing rich kids stuff. Literally no association I can latch onto. One of the saving graces is how much Serena doesn't really want to be part of that world, but doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

The strength of the cast, and variety of characters, and just how rich (not monetarily, but character-wise) they are have definitely kept me around.

And yes, Jenny is going to be so very much the Dawn of this show for you, I think.

I hate that I'll probably comment more on these than I do for the scifi shows you've posted about. ;)

[morwen_peredhil]

1. Yes, she's old enough — born in 1968.

2. Of all the fandoms I've been in, GG has the most femslash. There seems to be at least as much of it as of the boyslash, which is a nice change even though I'm not interested in either.

5. Yep. You won't see them on the bus again. The reset button was hit on that one.

6. They wrote Chuck all rapey when he was supposed to be just a recurring character, not a regular. It isn't forgotten/erased immediately, like the bus riding, but it's forgotten soon enough.

7. Why choose just one of those options? It's...complicated. Very complicated. And annoying.

8. Nate never gets any better.

10. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You have no idea.

11. Forget the rapiness and just go with it — all the characters seem to. I'm able to get past it because the writers have admitted they wouldn't have had Chuck do that in the pilot if they'd realized at the time that he was going to be a regular.

13. I think you'll get why everyone else hates Jenny if you keep watching.

[carrielh.livejournal.com]

7. I love Dan and Serena a lot. I won't say anything spoilery beyond that, but I think they're cute.

11. I never really got over the Chuck hate, so I could never fully appreciate his romantic plotlines, but he's entertaining enough, I guess.

13. I think that is a fair assessment, yes.

[lostopenwindows.livejournal.com]

I think Dan and Serena were at their cutest in the pilot, which is still my favorite GG episode.

And yes, Blair is very scary. That's what makes her so wonderful.

[mtranc3.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to watching it ^^;; It started purely for the fashion (which is over the top and unrealistic, but fabulous nontheless) and then I kind of liked the tragical hilariousness of the characters -especially Blair's- Dan and Serena are charming in the first episode, but they get really boring as the show moves on in my opinion.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

GG has the most amazing femslash community ever. It definitely has the largest of any fandom I've dipped my toes in.

And to be fair, Chuck's character did attempt to rape Jenny in the books as well. At this point in the series, they were still following the books more closely. It's later when the show starts diverging that he becomes much more tolerable.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I love Gossip Girl! I got into it in a sideways way about half-way through the first series, so the Chuck love was instant, though I thought 'cool character' and only later 'easy on the eyes!'

I only saw the pilot quite recently, and was appalled to find myself making up all kinds of excuses for Chuck. Pilot doesn't really work for me in terms of hanging together by itself, let alone with the rest of the show - but go on with it. It is great fun, and I am so fond of the central focus on Blair and Serena's relationship.

[mycenae.livejournal.com]

I forgot there was ever any bus riding in this show period. Wow. WTF was with that?

The show takes awhile to sort of suss out the characters and the relationships and see what works and is interesting to the audience. It's a bit tricky because the show later realized that Chuck worked out really well as a tortured anti-hero... but they'd already made him all creepy raper in the pilot. So basically the show goes "FORGET ABOUT RAPEY CHUCK!" and moves on. Some people are personally affronted by this and have vowed to hate Chuck forever on general principle, but I've just sort of accepted it. Obviously in real life people wouldn't just move on and forget about attempted rape, but it's a teen drama, they hadn't figured out the character yet, ok, fine.

I have no problem with Jenny, and I don't really get why everyone hates her. I think part of it is hate for the actress that spills over to the character. (I'm not sure why they hate her, either. She does a lot of drugs? Maybe? She's way pretentious? Not sure.)

Nate is very boring. The most exciting Nate scenes are the ones where he raises his eyebrows in badly acted surprise. Mostly he stands there and looks pretty.

I love Rufus and Lily. That's all I'll say on that.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

6. Within 48 hours, Chuck attempted to rape both Dan's crush and his sister. I'm amazed he didn't "fall off the roof."

I know! I thought he was supposed to be the jerkass with the heart of gold! Now I just want him to die.

8. Nate is pretty, but kinda bland. Like, the actor is blandly cute and the character is really bland. I fail to understand what either Blair or Serena sees in him.


Word.

Actually, what surprised me was how much I felt sorry for Blair. I though she was going to be the sterotypical dark haired Queen C who you like despite herself, but no, at this point I mainly feel bad for her.