The Broken Fantasy of Gossip Girl

In a time where social media has become quite literally a way of life, now more than ever seemed like a brilliant time to revive GG for a new generation. On paper, the show tackling current issues - Black Lives Matter, the Covid-19 pandemic, sexuality, social class and mental health - and Gossip Girl herself Kristen Bell reprising her narrating role, I had high hopes for this show.

However, after binging the first six episodes of a ten-episode season with a friend - the show has not met my expectations at all. Before we go into that, I always want to balance this out with some positives. Those being the surprisingly good acting from the majority of the young cast, the family dynamic between the two sisters had great promise (that has not been portrayed to its full potential) the creative choices cinematography-wise. Another positive is that I prefer this show over BBC’s Noughts and Crosses, which I was immensely disappointed by as a fan of the books.

However, the writing and lack of a narrative flow have made this show a difficult watch. The scripts seem to follow a “monster of the week” structure - whatever stakes, threats or conflicts occur during the current episode are rendered meaningless by the start of the next one. Nothing carries over or has consequences for any of the characters or the overall story.

The show picks up nine years after the conclusion of the original series, focused on a new generation of New York private school teens who find themselves under the eye of an anonymous influencer posting secrets. Yet, this show differs from the original in two significant ways:

The audience knows who Gossip Girl is from the very first episode, which my friend who I watched this with gave a valid reason when I voiced my dislike for the lack of mystery - the show is trying to do something new with the original. I could almost get behind that creative decision if GG’s presence cast a real shadow over this privileged band of misfits if it wasn’t for my second issue. The scandals or secrets that are “revealed” have no effect on the plot whatsoever. None of the kids even have secrets to expose either. The lack of mystery or confrontations over revealing posts made any suspense lukewarm at best and tedious at worst.

The conclusion I came to regarding the writing was this: the writers were trying to be bold with what they were writing without having to be bold. They would write uncomfortably graphic sexual scenes (which, despite the actors being in their twenties, the characters we follow are aged between fourteen and seventeen). Still, there are no emotional or grounded scenes to develop the romantic pairings. There was also a wildly inappropriate teacher/student relationship between two male characters, which went from Pretty Little Liars idealism to Cruel Summer twisted within a matter of minutes. As well as the writers writing this arc without an actual arc, there’s a lot of unintended victim-blaming. Through dialogue, the student is portrayed and told that he instigated this situation when he tried to end it multiple times.

There’s also a stark contrast between the adult and teenage characters. The adults (especially the leading group of teachers) are written as wildly inappropriate and juvenile - seriously, some stuff they do and say could not only lose them their jobs, it would earn them some prison time - but the teenagers are vastly more emotionally mature than the older cast. It’s an imbalance that becomes more apparent as the season progresses.

Also, the themes I mentioned above are written in one of two ways - barely scratching the surface or sexualised scandalisation. There were plot points that could’ve explored some interesting character moments, but the writing so far has not gone to those emotional depths yet. A moment could’ve explored cancel culture when one character forces her sister to relive a traumatic memory in front of their peers and online. Instead of losing her influencer status with brands and forcing her to step away from social media, all is forgiven, and she faces no consequences.

My original point is that the writing either dances around issues or completely erases them from the characters’ memories. Despite how dark or ludicrous the plot gets, the show does not seem brave enough to follow a plot through.

When writing this mid-season review, Gossip Girl has a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 5.3 on IMDb. I don’t think this show deserves that low a rating - there are definitely much worse out there - but I am sceptical about whether this show will actually get a season 2.

For this revival to survive, the screenwriting needs to be as bold and mature as they believe they are being. I will go into a more in-depth review after episode 10.

If I had to give this show a rating right now, the first six episodes have earned themselves ★★½.