While CW's "Gossip" wasn't always well written, it was unfailingly entertaining HBO Max's version rarely falls into that second category. Unlike similar sequels such as CW's "90210" or Peacock's "Saved by the Bell," none of the original cast members are involved in the new series, although it never misses a chance to name-drop former characters.
Based on the books by Cecily von Ziegesar and the CW series from Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the new version, from original writer Joshua Safran, captures none of its predecessor's essence. library, with a new crop of privileged students at an elite New York high school (streaming Thursdays, ★ out of four). It is also the kind of series that is nearly impossible to replicate successfully.īut that's not stopping HBO Max from its latest remake out of the Warner Bros.
It was decadent, sexy, ridiculous and juicy, the kind of series that helped build CW's reputation as a youth network and turned Lively into a star. XOXO.įrom 2007-12, CW's drama starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Penn Badgley detailed the lifestyles of the rich and famous among Manhattan's upper echelon of teens. Review: HBO Max's 'Gossip Girl' reboot is a stunning failure through an Instagram filter. So really, did anyone ever want more Gossip Girl? Or did they just want more of Leighton Meester saying bitchy things in a variety of fetching headbands?” Offsite Link by Anonymous She could make you cry or make you cringe in delicious sympathy with whichever of Blair’s minions she was cutting down to size for buying her shoes at a discount, and it’s thanks to Meester’s efforts that the show ever worked as well as it managed to. Meester was cast as Blair, original Gossip Girl’s ice queen, but she developed into the beating heart of the show, memorably described by another character as a “95-pound, doe-eyed, bon-mot-tossing, designer-label-whoring package of girly evil.” The exhaustive Gossip Girl recappers at Daily Intel used to joke that Blair had access to another, better writers’ room than the rest of the characters did, but what they meant was that Meester was capable of making even bad jokes sound clever. Except in that case, the show had a secret weapon: Leighton Meester. “That’s a problem the original Gossip Girl ran into over and over again, too. The former is how they keep advertisers happy. The Times (and most major and minor outlets) always publish a quasi-journalistic promotional piece prior to an airdate.then a week or so later they let the hammer drop with a legitimate review. There is quite a difference between pre-airdate PR puff piece publicity and a review. R54 Regarding the NY Times, there is neither one thumb nor two being offered, as you suggest.