Let me start out this post
by explaining why I decided to review an episode of Gossip Girl even though the show’s been off the air since December
of 2012. For starters, as random as this will probably sound, reading Fifty Shades of Grey has really gotten
me thinking about Gossip Girl again,
and not necessarily entirely in a good way. As I’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey, I keep finding myself thinking about how sick
and toxic Chuck and Blair’s relationship ended up becoming as the series
progressed. Despite the fact that Chuck and Blair’s relationship became
increasingly toxic as the series continued, both the writers for the show and
what I always felt was a huge chunk of the show’s audience seem to view Chuck
and Blair’s relationship as a fairytale romance, much like so many women out
there seem to view Christian Grey as a romantic hero despite the fact that he
treats Ana like shit throughout the course of the entire Fifty Shades trilogy.
For the record, I was
originally a huge fan of Chuck and Blair’s relationship, but I stopped being a
Chair shipper once Chuck tried to pimp Blair out to his Uncle Jack in an
attempt to keep his hotel in season three. That being said, I haven’t just been
thinking about Gossip Girl in a
negative way though. I’ve found myself genuinely missing the show lately, so I’ve
decided to revisit the show and watch some episodes again, blogging about them
in the process.
Deciding to revisit Gossip Girl again feels very nostalgic
for me personally since watching the season four episode “Empire of the Son”
back when it first aired is what prompted me to decide to start blogging about Gossip Girl and TV shows in general. I’m
just going to go right ahead and say that I’m going to start out by blogging
about my Gossip Girl “Rewatch” simply
on a trial basis since it’s a show that’s been off the air since 2012, I have
no idea what the level of interest in reviews of episodes of Gossip Girl will be. Sure, Gossip Girl was perhaps the most popular
show that I blogged about back when it was on the air, but that might have
changed since the show has been off the air for several years now. I’d also
like to clarify that if my Gossip Girl
“Rewatch” reviews end up becoming an ongoing thing, I’m not going to watch and
review all of the episodes in order. There are simply some episodes that I’m
more interested in watching in the immediate future than others. I don’t really
want to watch all of the episodes leading up to the episodes that I’m most
excited to watch again. However, I thought that watching and reviewing the
first episode of Gossip Girl would be
a good place to start my “Rewatch”; that being said, here are my thoughts on
the first episode.
Personally, I’ve always felt
that this episode was a great start to the series. I know that some shows like
to start off with their first episode diving right into the action as if the
viewers are already familiar with the characters and the plot of the show.
However, in most cases I prefer it when TV shows begin with some kind of event
or several events to start things off, and I think that Serena returning to the
Upper East Side under somewhat mysterious circumstances was a great way for the
show to begin. I’ve also always thought that the first episode of Gossip Girl did everything the first
episode of a TV should do. It did a good job of introducing all of the
characters; the premise of the show, establishing various conflicts between the
characters and it was simply a great episode.
I feel like I should also
mention that season one was pretty much the only season where I truly liked
Serena on a consistent basis. Once season two started, I pretty much hated
Serena for the most part. If you’ve read the reviews for episodes of Gossip Girl that I’ve already written or
watched the video reviews that I did for the show, it should be pretty clear
that after season one, the episodes where Serena didn’t annoy the hell out of
me and I actually liked her were few and very
far between.
Despite the fact that I’ve
watched this episode several times over the years, I don’t think I ever caught
the comment that Chuck made to Serena about how his parents owned the hotel
that Serena and Blair met at for drinks at one point in the episode before,
only to have the writers to later establish that Chuck’s mother was thought to
be dead. Sure, his mother later turned out to be alive, but for most of the
show’s run, everybody thought she was dead. There’s also the fact that Blair’s
mother, Eleanor, was played by Florencia Lozano in the pilot, but was played by
Margaret Colin in future episodes. I know that various elements of TV shows
often change from the way things are presented in the pilot or early episodes
of the series, but I personally thought it was kind of weird to see those
things change after the pilot. That being said, I definitely like Margaret
Colin as Blair’s mother more than I liked Florencia Lozano as Eleanor in the
pilot. Sure, I don’t entirely dislike Florencia Lozano’s portrayal of Eleanor
Waldorf, but based on what we saw of her in the pilot, I just think that
Margaret Colin was a better fit for the role and made Eleanor seem a lot more
likable than I thought she was in the pilot.
Speaking of the scene
between Serena and Chuck at the hotel bar, watching this episode and more
specifically watching that scene again in order to write this review once again
reminded me of why I like 90210 more
than Gossip Girl despite the fact
that the overall quality of the writing for Gossip
Girl is admittedly better than the writing for 90210. One thing that’s always really bugged me about Gossip Girl is the fact that the
characters always seemed to act like adults who are in their twenties, even
during the first two seasons of the show when they were still in high school. The
fact that Serena and Blair meet at a hotel bar for drinks is the perfect
example of that.
I honestly never understood
how characters on the show, such as Serena and Blair, managed to buy alcoholic
drinks without getting busted for being under age. I’m assuming that they used
fake IDs to buy alcohol. However, I’m still not sure how they would even manage
to get away with doing that. After all, with the exception of Dan, Jenny and
Vanessa once she joins the cast, all of the teenagers on the show come from
elite high society families that are often featured in the media. I’m sure that
the media would have mentioned how old they were at some point, so unless all
of the bartenders working on the Upper East Side of New York City are living
under rocks, I honestly don’t understand how they could possibly be unaware of
the fact that the teenagers on the aren’t old enough to legally buy alcohol.
The fact that all of the
characters on the show continued to act more like twenty-something adults when
they were in high school for the first two seasons and college starting with
season three is something that always bothered me about Gossip Girl. Don’t get me wrong, the storylines on the show were
usually at least somewhat interesting, it just always bugged me at least a
little bit that the characters never really acted their age. It made me wonder
if the writers would have rather worked on a TV show about twenty-something
rich people, but decided to compromise by simply having the characters act like
they were in their twenties even though they were high school when the show
started.
One thing that I’ve always
liked about the first episode is the fact that the conflict between Serena and
Blair wasn’t resolved by the end of the episode. Honestly, I don’t think that
it would have made a lot on sense if things between them had been resolved by
the end of the episode. If they had tried to act like things were all good
between Serena and Blair by the end of the episode, it definitely would have
come across as bad writing. After all, the conflict between Serena and Blair
first stemmed from the fact that Serena left the Upper East Side under
mysterious circumstances without telling Blair or anybody else that she was
leaving. Sure, Serena apparently left because she thought that’s what she
needed to do after she and Nate slept with each other since Blair and Nate were
a couple, but that still seems pretty shitty of Serena to up and abandon Blair
with no explanation, if you ask me. Just when it looked like Serena and Blair
were making progress with mending their friendship, Nate told Blair that he and
Serena had slept with each other. That’s not the kind of betrayal that I think
a person could quickly forgive their best friend for committing, which is the
main reason why I’m really glad that things hadn’t been resolved between Serena
and Blair at the end of the episode.
While I’ve always thought
that this episode did a pretty good job of establishing various bits of
characterization for each of the characters, I thought they did an especially
good job of establishing Serena, Blair, Dan and Nate as characters in the
pilot. One of the things that I’ve come to expect from pilots, as well as early
episodes of a TV show, is that various aspects of a character and their
personality may change. That being said, in retrospect one aspect of the pilot
that I’m glad the writers didn’t just drop from the show as it continued is the
fact that Nate is constantly having deal with conflict and drama involving his
family. Once Nate had told Blair that he and Serena had slept with each other
before Serena left the Upper East Side and Blair wanted him to leave, Nate
seemed to be perfectly okay with the possibility that his relationship with
Blair might be over for good. It was only after his father told him that he was
basically depending on him and the fact that Nate and Blair have apparently
been a couple since they were kids in order to make a business deal with
Eleanor that Nate really made any effort to try and repair his relationship
with Blair.
As the series continued, I
found myself thinking that Serena and Nate were a lot alike in terms of what writers
did with them, mainly that a lot of their storylines throughout Gossip Girl’s
six season run revolved around their love lives. However, I’ve always felt that
the writing for Nate still always had more versatility to it compared to the
writing for Serena since they did do a variety of storylines where Nate was
dealing with family drama like I mentioned earlier. Plus, I always thought the
show did a great job of casting Nate’s love interests, which is a big part of
why I really like Nate despite the fact that the writing for the character
reminded me a lot of Serena, who I for the most part hated after season two.
While I’ve always felt that
the writers didn’t do a whole lot with Rufus and Lily in the pilot, I think
they did a good job of establishing the characters both as individual
characters, as well as the romantic relationship that they had had when they
were younger. Personally, I always really liked the relationship between Rufus
and Lily. Sure, their relationship had its ups and downs throughout Gossip Girl’s run, and they ultimately
didn’t end up together when the series ended, but I’ve still always enjoyed
their relationship.
While I ended up really
liking Chuck as a character for the most part, and the relationship between
Chuck and Blair was one of my favorite things about the show until the end of
season three, when I was watching this episode again to write this review, I
found myself thinking that Chuck definitely doesn’t come across as being very
likable at all in the pilot. After all, he made unwanted sexual advances toward
Serena because he thought she should sleep with him as a way of thanking him
for arranging to have the kitchen staff at the hotel they were hanging out at
make her a grilled cheese sandwich. If that wasn’t sleazy enough, he basically
tried to rape Jenny later on in the episode. Having the guy who would end up
being one half of the main romantic pairing on the show try to rape two women
in the first episode definitely isn’t a smart idea if you want the viewers to
like him. Plus, there’s also the fact that he treated Dan like crap every time
they interacted with each other in the pilot.
As I mentioned at the
beginning of this review, reading Fifty
Shades of Grey really got me thinking a lot about Gossip Girl in both good ways and bad ways. As I was watching the
pilot again in order to write this review, Chuck’s behavior in the episode really
reminded me why Christian Grey’s creepy behavior in Fifty Shades of Grey has reminded me a lot of the way Chuck acted
at times throughout Gossip Girl’s run.
Thankfully Chuck didn’t act creepy all the time throughout the show’s run like
Christian is prone to do. Plus, fortunately for Gossip Girl, Blair isn’t dumber than a box of rocks and she isn’t a
completely spineless doormat like Ana is.
Personally, I’ve always
thought that viewers should cut the actors and writers working on a TV show some
slack when it comes to the first few episodes of a TV series. That being said, I
have to say that I’ve never thought that Kristen Bell’s narration, as Gossip
Girl in the pilot was all that great. While there are a few bits of dialogue
where I thought Bell’s narration was pretty good, her narration in the pilot
just seems too detached, as if she doesn’t really care about what she was doing,
in my opinion. Since she was playing the titular role on the show, I really
think the pressure to do a good job should really have been on, and I simply
found her narration in the pilot to be a bit lacking.
All things considered, it
was definitely a lot of fun to watch this episode again for the first time in
several years. Personally, I think the pilot has stood the test of time pretty
well for me personally in the sense that I still love the episode, even after
all this time. I say this because sometimes my enjoyment of an episode of a TV
show diminishes over time. I should probably also mention that sometimes I’ve found
that my enjoyment of an episode of a TV show actually increases over time in
some cases too. As for the pilot, it’s very well written. With the exception of
Kristen Bell, whose performance is a bit lackluster in my opinion, the cast did
a pretty good job of slipping into their roles with relative ease.
As I said at the beginning
of the episode, I’m not planning to watch and review episodes of Gossip Girl in
order, because there are some episodes that I’m simply more interested in
watching than others. However, if anybody who reads this has an episode that
they would be interested in me reviewing, please feel free to leave your
suggestions in the comment section. Before you do that though, I would
recommend taking a look at the list of the Gossip
Girl episodes that I’ve reviewed to make sure that I haven’t already
reviewed the episode.
That being said, my final
score for the pilot episode of Gossip
Girl is 9 out of 10.
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