"GOSSIP GIRL: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars) STARRING Blake Lively as SERENA VAN DER WOODSEN Leighton Meester as BLAIR WALDORF Penn Badgley as DAN HUMPHREY Chace Crawford as NATE ARCHIBALD Taylor Momsen as JENNY HUMPHREY Ed Westwick as CHUCK BASS Kelly Rutherford as LILY VAN DER WOODSEN Matthew Settle as RUFUS HUMPHREY Kristen Bell as GOSSIP GIRL Not Rated Available on DVD August 18 GossipGirlTVonDVD.com Studio: Warner Bros. Back to DVD Review Home |  |
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The kids of the Upper East Side are going into their senior year, and Gossip Girl is following them along, dishing the dirt to the rest of the world. Friendships are tested, new and old relationships bloom, people change for better and for worse and scandals are everywhere. By the end of the season, we see how Serena got to be the way she was by retracing the steps of her mother, and we say goodbye to high school for the Upper East Siders... and a possible reveal for the real Gossip Girl.
WHAT I LIKED
There will always be a certain charm to a show like “Gossip Girl” simply because it taps into the voyeuristic fantasies of the American viewership. While the characters in this show are fictional, the world’s fascination with them is not. Here, we get to see the rich and pseudo-famous with their problems exposed for everyone’s amusement.
“Gossip Girl” is an interesting mix of various other stories, primarily a soap opera version of “Sex and the City” for teens with a dash of “Heathers” to make things that much more catty. It’s a way to live vicariously through the uber-wealthy and the uber-beautiful. It’s a fantasy through-and-through, a soap opera for teens and twentysomethings, only with a much higher production budget.
What makes “Gossip Girl” rise above your basic daytime soap opera mentality is the character development. Sure, it’s just a lot of relationship issues with shifting loyalties, but the show exposes a deeper side to the characters. They’re not just vapid pretty people, even though they get into all the scrapes you would expect from this type.
I wouldn’t say that “Gossip Girl” is my favorite show on the air, but I will concede that it’s a pretty decent series, and that means a lot coming from a dude like me.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Although there’s probably a lot more truth to the real-life counterparts for the “Gossip Girl” characters, this show exists in a world of hyper-reality. There’s almost too many good-looking people on the series. After all, I’ve known plenty of wealthy people, and there are just some things that even plastic surgery can’t fix in real life.
Still, it is a soap opera, which makes the sea of beautiful people forgivable. As soap operas go, it’s much more watchable than the daytime fare, but it is still a soap opera. The characters’ wounds are almost all self-inflicted, making it hard to sympathize with them. Ultimately, so much of their efforts seem to be focused on saving face and keeping their social stature when we all know (or at least should know) that this is not the most important thing in life.
DVD FEATURES
All 25 episodes of the CW show are contained on seven discs. Unaired scenes are included for many of these episodes.
Additional special features on disc seven include a map of the three favorite “Gossip Girl” haunts (Brooklyn & Queens, Manhattan and Long Island), which include navigable icons which each features a two or three minute featurette about the locations (bars and hotels) and sets. There’s also the featurette “Gossip Girl: Faces Behind the Design,” which is a pretty pretentious (and sometimes insulting) look at the art and design behind the show.
If you want a look at the downstairs life behind the upstairs show, you can watch the six webisodes of “Chasing Dorota,” the story of the maid with a secret. There’s also a gag reel and a downloadable audiobook of “Gossip Girl: You Know You Love Me” by Cecily von Ziegesar, read by Christina Ricci.
WHO’S GOING TO LIKE THIS MOVIE
Those who want the elite dish of a teen angst drama.
