Some television shows know how to milk a storyline out for several seasons, able to keep an audience entertained while slowly building characters and plots to hook an audience. It can take years for a whole plotted storyline to play out in fascinating manner. The payoff after a long enough time of plotting can be justified in seeing the desired result for a television show.
Gossip Girl isn’t that show.
Using the Melrose Place mid-’90s era of rapid-fire plotting and character development, Gossip Girl follows a group of wealthy high school students in Manhattan through their travels and shenanigans. Fortunes rise and fall, romances develop & implode and life turns upside down and inside out, then all back again, for those involved. The same group returns for another year in the life:
Serena (Blake Lively) – In and out of relationships, Serena alternatively goes from being Blair’s rival to her best friend and back again.
Blair (Leighton Meester) – Having been blown off by Chuck in between the events of the end of the first season and the beginning of the second, her revenge tactics end up biting off more than she can swallow by the season’s end.
Nate (Chace Crawford) – Losing the family fortune, Nate goes from being a member of the privileged and in his family’s rise back up the economic ladder ends up becoming better friends with Dan.
Chuck (Ed Westwick) – Alternately loving and hating Blair, Chuck manages to get into all sorts of things (including a stay in an Opium den in Asia) by season’s end.
Dan (Penn Badgely) – Serena’s on again, off again boyfriend, Dan becomes much more of the insider this year.
Jenny (Taylor Momsen) – Rising in the fashion world before being legally able to drive, Jenny takes a trip on the wild side.
Vannesa (Jessica Szohr) – Featuring more prominently this year, she dates Nate for most of the season and winds up being an erstwhile friend to Blair.
With enough plot to go through, one could have an entire series based on the sheer volume of character development and plot thrown out in just this season alone. While it’s a lot to keep track of, and the show does come with handy “recaps” to allow one to at least try and keep up with a missed episode, watching an entire season of Gossip Girl is more of a marathon then a sprint.
And that’s the beauty of it, as the show has so much plot and goes so over the top with its drama that it becomes inherently fascinating to watch. This is a great television cast that is used just enough; no one is given significant amounts of time without the others and it gives the cast enough room to accentuate the positives and minimize the flaws. When the show begins to focus on one actor, and most are solid but not special in terms of ability, it begins to wane but it’s tightly focused enough that it rights itself pretty quickly.
Much like the high you get after running a marathon, Gossip Girl is a labor intensive experience as a television show. But it is quite worth it.
Presented in an anamorphic widescreen format with a Dolby Digital surround, Gossip Girl has a terrific transfer. New York is a vibrant, colorful city and the show is about vibrant, colorful people in it. To go along with a superb transfer, the sound is equally as wonderful.
The Music Video for Jenny Humphrey’s fashion, in its entirety, is included as an extra.
5th Ave meets Gossip Girl is a map of all the places in the series.
Faces behind the design is a feature on the actual designers behind the show’s fashion and the design of the series in general. Having several ghost designers on the set to craft the fashion, there was a lot of thought and work put into designing the fashion of the show to reflect its characters. The art was lent, so to speak, from several local artists as well as from an art foundation to use in the show. It’s an interesting piece that gives a little bit of an insight into the costuming aspect of episodic television
Gossip Girl: Chasing Dorota is a bit following Blair’s housekeeper on her whacky adventures when Blair isn’t around.
Gossip Girl: You Know You Love Me is an excerpt of the audio version of the book featuring Christina Ricci reading Cecily von Ziegesar’s novel in the series.
A Gag Reel is included as well.
With minimal extras, but plenty of television show, Gossip Girl is a bit of an acquired taste but one worth seeking out.
Warner Home Video presents Gossip Girl (The Complete Second Season). Developed by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. Starring Blake Lively, Penn Badgely, Chace Crawford, Kelly Rutherford, Kristen Bell, Jessica Szohr. Not Rated. Running time: 1,066 minutes. Released on DVD: August 18, 2009. Available at Amazon.
