Yes! The show gets abysmally low ratings—it was 150th in the listings for last year. The article trots out all the old horses: it's internetting, it's DVRing, it's being secretly downloaded into vaginae nationwide! Which, fine, might be true. But the real answer to this ratings mystery is that the show can't possibly live up to the mind-numbingly loud buzzzz. It's kind of a self-perpetuating animal, this Gossip Girl frenzy. People click and then you write more and then people click more and then you write more and so on and so on until you are nothing but Frankenstein chasing his monster to the ends of the Earth, hoping—mad and frothing—to one day destroy it. I talk about the show like it's my damn job or something (wait a tick!) and I don't even like it! You heard that? I don't like Gossip Girl. I like what it could be, but what it is currently is something like a soggy piece of celery. All bland flavor and diminished crisp.

And that's why it gets low ratings! Because it's not good. And no one really, sincerely, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, gives a shit. It's like the election. Errrrbody's all talkin' about Sarah Palin and doing side-splitting parody and all that, but come November 4th ain't but a half of those people who are gonna vote. That's just history! What the CW (the "network" that airs the dreck) needs to do is actually rein in the buzz a bit. It's gotten to the point where you seriously don't need to watch the show in order to have some sort of informed "30 is the new zygote!" with-it conversation. "Oh yeah I totes saw that photo of Blake and Chesterly kissing while Credenza and Toucan Sam looked on. Yeah. What a moment." It's not hard. Let's create a little more mystery, with just the occasional tease here and there. It will make my job a mite bit harder, but the show could maybe attain that level of "oohhh what isss it??" curiosity that other oddities like the original 90210 developed, to great success. (That was before the internet. Sigh. Simpler times.)

You see those kids aren't just rich like they might have been on such a show thirty years ago, with a sports car and a nice haircut. In this "new," cash-obsessed post-Reagan era, your typical rich kids are Aaron Spelling rich. With like private planes and hugely expensive birthday parties and $800 just-because! friend presents. Even the new kids in town—fresh from storied rube-mill Kansas!—don't live in a humble shack. No, they live in a big stucco mansion with their prodigal rich kid dad, their fashionista mother, and their boozy former actress of a grandmother. That's the new poor! Same goes for the humble Humphreys on the east coast money fest Gossip Girl who, as the penniless kids in town, live in a modestly sprawling DUMBO loft with their former rockstar, gallery owner dad.

Our fascination with bank accounts not our own represents some kind of political pandemic, Stanley argues:

It could be that adolescents, like their parents, simply do not want to identify with ordinary folk. The economy is bad, but it’s still an aspirational age. Some economists argue that many lower-income Americans, young and old, vote against their own financial interests — opposing tax increases on the wealthy or a national health-insurance plan — because they identify with people who have more money and hope and even assume that someday they too will reach those lofty tax brackets.

Which sounds sort of ominous and wicked, no? A huge chunk of the population wooed by glowing lights and flashy fake rich people, hypnotized and sedated enough to not realize we're being pick-pocketed where we stand. Pretty grim for "teen entertainment." And you thought the sex was bad! (Well, maybe you didn't.)

If I sound a little underwhelmed it's only because I think the show's PR machine consistently sets up impossibly high standards for this usually well-written, only minimally well-directed teen soap. How can the show itself ever hope to live up to the genius poster ads, or the scintillatingly brief TV spots? The show itself is fine, good enough even, but the ad campaigns are just so, so much better. Anyway, that media critique aside, things actually did happen!

Jenny spent the summer toiling away—like a blonde, statuesque, well-fed Asian child in a factory—for Eleanor Waldorf's clothing line, while that lady who used to be on Law & Order: SVU towered over her, making her sort buttons. But Jenny had a dress and it was pretty in a Lemoncake Stupid Society way and she wanted to go the Hamptons White Party (no not the "cool" Diddy one, the lame and sparsely-attended one thrown by Vitamin Water) so so so bad. Enter the genially useless gay token Erik van der Woodsen, who was still mad at her about something or other but decided to put her "on probation" and escort her to the gala. They got to meet Tinsley Mortimer! But, more on that later.

Meanwhile in Humphrey wanna hump hump land, Dan's summer writing internship involved more making out in liberry stacks while Jay McInerney read aloud from a 25-year-old novel than it did actually, you know, writing. See the problem is, these empty girls he was snogging just weren't his muses. That would be Serena (who later on in the episode was dressed in an awfully Grecian, muse-like outfit), his months-long-lost love who disappeared into the summer green abstract of the Hamptons after their relationship crumbled due to murder and lies and drunkenness. Though fired from his internship for not producing any writing, Dan decided to head to the Hamptons to pursue his love and his story.

Speaking of that green abstract, give the cinematographer(s) a raise for the beautiful sunlight-through-Hamptons-trees motif used throughout the episode's establishing shots. Just lovely. Not as lovely were Serena's mopey, increasingly who-the-fuck-cares face and Nate's embarrassing attempt at a meaningful character arc: eldersex. OK, hah hah I kid the lady wasn't old, she was like thirty-five. But the story was so wan and weak. It just felt like such a toss-off by the writers, making it even sadder than usual to watch Chace Crawford try to mold his porcelain face into believable facial expressions and say lines like the way real people say them. He tried, though. Even through that ridiculous are-they-trying-extra-hard-to-make-him-gay creamish cardigan of his, he tried. Serena and Dan were reunited at the White Party, of course, and, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up meeting cute on the beach, Serena in goddess/muse mode, Dan looking like a chorus boy from South Pacific. Thus begins another year of living completely not dangerously.

As for the most interesting characters, Blair and Chuck, they had another little pas de deux of double crosses and deceptions. Well, OK, that makes it sound a little more exciting than it actually was. Mainly Blair trotted a fake boyfriend in front of Chuck, successfully trying to make him feel jealous and sad. Ed Westwick seemingly forgot how to act over the summer (or maybe he never knew) and said each line with the same kitty cat purr that charmed a bit last season and is now kind of tired and grating. Blair's boy turned out to not be the apple pie-fed all American Princeton/Georgetown boy he'd advertised himself as, rather he is a British lord who, apparently having seen the Julia Stiles epic The Prince & Me (come on Joshua Safran, come on), decided to keep his identity a secret so he could be treated as just a regular filthy rich person. In the end Chuck couldn't say "elephant chew" and Blair left with British McSeersucker.

I am, of course, saving the best thing for last. That would be Tinsley Mortimer, a socialite whose mind got up and wandered off years ago, who made a cameo as herself, helping young Jenny's burgeoning Tello's career. She said her few lines not so much woodenly, but as if she were spirited away behind some three inch piece of steel. There was her body and her mouth moving and then there were words, coming sort of sideways out of her. I almost wanted to break it up into its tips and taps, hoping to decipher some submerged battleship morse code message. But I didn't have the time. There's a metaphor for the show in there somewhere, but we'll have to wait to unpack that on some other day.

Ultimately the episode didn't quite get the balance between levity and gravity quite right. Moments shifted awkwardly between campy and maudlin (a fine, fine line that this young cast isn't quite capable of treading) and, as always, everything was too easy. Just like the croquet game they played—inaccurately, I may add! you hold the mallet between your legs and swing back and forth! those boys ought to know a thing or two about that!—in which every single ball went through the wicket. Languid ease on a sprawling summer lawn is all well and good, but it doesn't make for arresting drama. Here's hoping the trip back to grimy, sticky Manhattan reignites that wicked flame that was blown out last night, hopefully temporarily, like a Tiki torch snuffed in balmy beach winds.

If you go back to the great big whopping granddaddy of recessions, the Great Depression, you can clearly see that the misery of the people was offset or in some way mitigated by an influx of popular musicals and screwball comedies and swoony romances. Movies like Anything Goes and Love Affair were giddy, romantic delights, while The Wizard of Oz and You Can't Take It With You presented the penury of the times through something of an aw-shucks, zanily hardscrabble lens. Escapism at its finest. You turn then to the films of the supposedly-idyllic 1950's and there you have Rebel Without a Cause and A Streetcar Named Desire and the myriad alarmist science fiction movies plaguing the cinema. The American mind was free to look under the rock and see what bugs were underneath.

Fast forward a few decades to the early 1980's, that time when the country was still reeling from its urban centers being evacuated in the 1970's, leaving little but a grim, impoverished anger lurking their streets. And on television? Shows like Dallas and Dynasty. Even 1970's shows that depicted a blue collar lifestyle, like All in the Family or Sanford and Sons did so with a strangely warm slant. Of course artier fare was always there to reflect things as they were, but it does seem that in unpleasant times, people turn to mainstream entertainment that is silly and frivolous.

And so it is with these television shows now. The American taste seems to be increasingly obsessed with wealth and privilege, as such a lifestyle becomes more and more foreign to more and more people. But a couple of these new shows could be seen as correctives, in my mind. Gossip Girl, for example, shows the blind excess and awesomeness of wealth, yes, but there are also "poor" characters like Dan and Jenny who do look on that world with a healthy (for a teen soap opera) amount of skepticism. 90210 has always quietly mocked its characters' silly wealth, and hopefully this new iteration will do the same. And, look at a show like Exiled, in which the hideous brats from MTV's hit My Super Sweet 16 are sent to far flung, not-so-wealthy places and taught "valuable lessons." Yes the show isn't perfect, but it is giving the rich a rap on the knuckles. And also consider FX's The Riches, in which a family of Gypsy Travelers pretends to be rich and subverts the culture from the inside out.

So yeah, maybe we're turning our recession-era obsession with the wealthy into a social corrective! Look at how dim and vapid these people are! We don't want to be like them. Wouldn't that be pleasant wishful thinking! Really, people have always been obsessed with wealth and status, back to the days of the Greeks. Everyone's always been miserable! And when all of the practical stakes—shelter, food, etc.—are low, then the frothy dramatic ones can be raised.

Right, The Wire? Right?

"Well it was a happy time because I had just found the old shoe I thought I lost and Guadalupe was mad at me because she said "Meez Tinsley ju are never pooting things a-way when I am asking you!" and so I ran out of the house and down the street and into the park and I climbed a hill and poked at the dirt with sticks for a while and looked for bugs. I didn't find any bugs because they were probably mad at me too so I left the park and ate some pizzapie and it got all on my shirt so I cried a little bit and then I went to see the Little Mermaid in Broadway and it looked like my feelings! So that made me feel better and I went home and curled up outside Guadalupe's door and in the morning she wasn't mad anymore and she made me cereal and she was humming her nice little back-home song and it was sunny and there were birds so I felt better and then the TV called and asked me to be on it so I said 'Yes I will Go!' and so I went to the beach house and they moved me in front of a movie camera and I said a few things and then it was over. Oh but I forgot the best part, when I got to the beach house I was rooting around in the old lobster traps that are under the porch and I found my shoe in one of them! Guadalupe was very happy and patted my head and said 'I will geev it a wash.' And then she made me a lemonade and sent me out to the porch to watch the seaside and I did and I drank the lemonade and looked at the ocean and I thought of the Little Mermaid and how it was sad that she didn't like where she lived or the people she lived with because I do, very much, every day."

Tell me what can you want?
You’ve got it all.
Things are real in a handshake.
Rest my bones these days in a different way.
Cherish the change; it may not stay.
I remember your dress,
Like dreams when you wake with a sudden start.
You’re beside me in the dark,
Wrapped in my arms.
Love is being entranced in a glance,
To muster up courage when you’re flustered,
To stumble on the words you prepare.
Don’t worry about the money that went down the drain
Because the best things in life are free.

Pretty fuckin' deep huh? Anyway, happy Saturday. I'm not Ian, I know. But hopefully we'll have some fun.

[ONTD]

lots of no-parking signs/film permits on the side streets of smith street; fucking up our parking situation. we are old and don't watch the show. please make them leave.

Hahhh, old person alert! Your joints hurt and you don't understand the giddy thrills of shitty television shows starring hard-bodied muppets who make you want to laugh and clap and cry all at the same time! No we won't make them leave! We'll make them stay. You hear me, Josh Schwartz? Film in Carroll Gardens all the fucking time.

Um, that is until I can afford to live there. Then stop. Terrific.

Specifically a scene from the Jeremy Irons miniseries based on the Evelyn Waugh novel about class and religion and forbidden desire. Chace is the timid but fascinated Charles Ryder, Ed is the aristocratic seen-it-all-except-it Sebastian Flyte. Hopefully no Julia or Lady Marchmain will come between them this time.

[Brideshead photo from tipster, other via Bauer-Griffin]

SUNDAY

Mad Men: Hurts So Good
The Lowdown: A drama produced by Sopranos alum Matthew Wiener, Mad Men, now in its second season, is a detailed look at the Madison Avenue ad world of the early 1960's and the lives in its orbit.
What People Will Say: "Not as good as the first season." "Too slow." "Too sad." "I don't get it." "Who cares about their families, let's show more fucking." Similar stuff to the Sopranos detractors who foolishly didn't like the show as much when it went on a more philosophical bent toward the end of its run.
What You Should Say: "It's still great! I'm sick of people crying shark-jumping too soon." Yes it is unbearably sad some (most) of the time, but it's a show that is more profoundly About Something than most movies today, let alone television. The over-analysis on blogs and whatnot is getting to be a bit much (heh), but the show itself is a beguiling and slightly off-center work of art.
[Returning. 10pm, AMC, Airing now]

True Blood: Six Feet Over
The Lowdown: Doing some direct Dexter competition with his former Six Feet Under star Michael C. Hall, creator Alan Ball brings us a dark and bloody Southern Gothic vampire tale.
What People Will Say: "It's so dark and hip and cool and totally warped man."
What You Should Say: Well, we're not exactly sure yet. Its relentless advertising has gotten a bit tiresome, but the pedigree is certainly there. Though, even if you never read a review, you can definitely say "Anna Paquin is annoying" with assurance.
[New. 9pm, HBO, Sept. 7]

MONDAY

Gossip Girl: It's Hip! And Annoying!
The Lowdown: We don't talk about it much on the site, I mean not as much as we like breathe or blink or whatever, but it is on our minds from time to time. Basically it's a series about rich New York City kids—some of them girls, some of them gay—who do fake-bad things like do drugs and have sex.
What People Will Say: "It's crap!" "It's garbage!" "It's silly and/or offensive!" Or: "It's silly/offensive crap garbage that's a wicked guilty pleasure." The former assessments come from Philistines with no sense of joy. The latter, from people who think they get the joke but don't.
What You Should Say: "Fuck off, there's nothing guilty about it. I'm just keeping up with the times." Yes the show is not "well made" all the time, and yes it features the acting stylings of a glorified sex robot, but it's also trendy and au courant and it's what the kids (well, a few million of them) are watching. And there's no shame in that. Why curl up into a Havishamish ball and let the bright world forget you? Stay with it! "Plus, Blair's fashions are totes fun to gawp at."
[Returning. 8pm, The CW, Sept. 1]

The Hills: Zombies Are Scary
The Lowdown: Dim, cork-filled Angelenos wander around sun-dappled real estate, letting their blithe spirits mash up against each other in this MTV reality Gymnopédie.
What People Will Say: "Vapid, gutless trash. Won't someone please think of the children???" Or, again, "GUILTEE PLEAZURR!!1!"
What You Should Say: Similar to the Gossip Girl angle, except you could add a little dash of social studies revolutionary spice to it. "I have to know my enemy in order to destroy it." That kind of thing. You should be careful to note Lo's bitchiness and either think it's kicky good fun or despise it. Also, any time you are asked who your favorite character is, there are only two acceptable answers: Whitney (bovine, out to lunch, sad, enigmatic) or Doug (his grandfather invented frozen burritos or something.)
[Returning, unfortunately. 10pm, MTV, airing now]

TUESDAY

90210: Out With the Old, In With the Ew
The Lowdown: Another CW teen bitch fest, this one is a "reimagining" of the seminal 90's series about the rich and troubled kids of West Beverly (Hills) High.
What People Will Say: "My cherished memories are tarnished!" Or, "How could this be done to us, wasn't the first one bad enough??" Other Nancy Naysayer stuff like that.
What You Should Say: "It could be interesting to see if this is what bursts the teen bubble." It could go either way. 90210 might hook its star to Gossip Girl's (admittedly wobbly-wheeled) wagon and find some buzzy success, or it could be a terrific flop. Also say things like "Shenae Grimes was only so-so on Degrassi," if you want to horrify and yet strangely intrigue potential mates. Also throw in a "I can't believe Jessica Walter agreed to be on it, though! How's that Arrested Development movie coming along anyway?"
[New. 9pm, The CW, Sept. 2]

Fringe: What?
The Lowdown: It's the X-Files as done by Alias and Lost wunderkind J.J. Abrams.
What People Will Say: "Look, Joshua Jackson isn't dead."
What You Should Say: "My face hurts."
[New. 9pm, Fox, Sept. 9]

WEDNESDAY

Top Design: Now Oldham Free!
The Lowdown: This is the second season of the Jonathan Adler-related interior design competition show. The first season was bizarre and off-tone, but now those, um, magical Magical Elves are taking the reins so there may be hope.
What People Will Say: "There is too much of this reality stuff, I am so tired of this." "'See you later, decorator' is a terrible catchphrase."
What You Should Say: "I agree, care for a refresher on that Tom Collins?"
[Returning, sort of. 10pm, Bravo, Sept. 3]

America's Next Top Model: Why We Can't Have Nice TV
The Lowdown: This is the worst television show ever made. Tyra Banks is a monster.
What People Will Say: "It's so bitchy and trashy and fun! Tyra's fierce in a hilarious way."
What You Should Say: "This is the worst television show ever made. Tyra Banks is a monster. My face hurts. Oh, but, how's that tranny doing?"
[Returning, endlessly. 8pm, The CW, Sept. 3]

THURSDAY

Kath & Kim: The Dingo Ate My Good Show
The Lowdown: An import of a classic Australian sitcom, Kath & Kim stars two likable actresses (Molly Shannon and Selma Blair) behaving badly and mugging for the camera. Part of NBC's continued efforts to reinstate a Thursday night "Must See TV" comedy block.
What People Will Say: "Oh, rubbish. This is nowhere near as good my precious, precious foreign version." Or, "I don't get it. Where are the men?"
What You Should Say: "I will watch for Molly Shannon, because she is wonderful and deserves a huge career and lots of awards. Plus it will be interesting to see how NBC fares, given all the trouble surrounding this show." Or, "Hush up about your damn foreign shows, this is AMERICA. Don't tread on it or leave it, buster."
[New. 9:30pm, NBC, Oct. 9th]

30 Rock & The Office: Yes, Please
The Lowdown: Two exquisitely funny shows, both ended with bang-up finales. Michael is a daddy, sort of! Dwight and Angela! Jim and Pam! Liz Lemon wants a baby!
What People Will Say: Inevitably, I'm sure: "They've jumped the shark, no one cares about ____'s plotline." (Specifically for The Office.) Everything was so much better before."
What You Should Say: "Cram it with walnuts, ugly. The Office was good as it's ever been last season, and 30 Rock is so stupendously brilliant it makes, well, my face hurt. Tracy Morgan for president."
[Returning. 8:30 & 9pm, NBC, '30' Oct. 30th (ugh!) 'Office' Sept. 25]

FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Get the hell out of the house.

Anyone who knows anything about academia knows that the neogothic architecture at the New Haven campus of Yale looks nothing at all like the neoclassical campus at Columbia.

It's true! Yale is gothic and château-esque, while Columbia is neoclassical and Washington National Mall-y. Surely the show's discerning and worldly audience will notice such audacity. What's next? Obama lived in Harkness? Anne Bogart is doing lovely work at Yale Drama? Balderdash! [Portfolio via Balk]

Steverino_Begins' new line beats the original, Ed Westwick Goofs the Floof.

But sales of the audio book versions of the first and second book (also read by Ms. Ricci) in the series have been consistently moribund, even in the wake of the hit TV series: for the five years since being released, they have sold fewer than 1,000 copies yearly, according to BookScan. “The teen and the late-teen market has been a really tough market for us,” said Anthony Goff, publisher of Hachette Audio and Digital Media.

Right. Probably because they don't spend too much time driving around and around the parking lot at Cherry & Webb looking for a spot.

This is from a Times story from yesterday about the DVD packaging of the show's first season. Included in the disc's special features is an abridged reading of the first book by the actress Christina Ricci. So that way, the kids can listen to an actress reading a book on their television. I'm not sure what point any of this proves except that Gossip Girl comes back two weeks from today. BANGO!

Aaron Altman's new line beats the original, Actresses Get Into Terrible Fight About Which Of Their Costars Is Gayer.

The young woman who approached the table by the window at the Pinkberry on Eighth Avenue and 18th street was nervous, breathless. She was sorry to interrupt, sorry to be a bother, she said. It was just that she loved Taylor Momsen so much.

The just-barely-15-year-old Ms. Momsen, who plays aspiring queen bee Jenny Humphrey on the CW show Gossip Girl, gave the woman—who looked to be at least in her mid-20s, and was clutching a napkin and shaking like a whippet in winter—a warm, practiced smile and helped her locate a pen and piece of paper so she could sign the autograph on something suitable. Ms. Momsen scribbled her name with a girlish curlicue flourish, and offered a friendly wave goodbye as her fan skipped elatedly out the door.

It’s a regular occurrence now for Ms. Momsen (“The older girls get nervous. The younger girls, cry,” she said), who, over the summer, has become the obsession of a strange and ragged slice of New York.

Oh man, that GG spinoff is so going to happen. Assuming CW can even afford Momsen.

[Observer]

TedSez's new line beats the original, Shaking Fancy Handbag Full of Pinkberry, Photographer Hopes to Lure Skittish Starlet Out for Photo.

[via Luxurious Vulgarity]

belltolls' new line beats the HUGELY OFFENSIVE original, Little Bitch Stops For Itch

Add your own!

A few commenters win for their chewing gum references, which beat the original line: Family Line Probably Ends With Willy Wonka's Only Son