Needless live blogging: Gossip Girl

(From L-R: Blair, Dan, Serena, Nate, Chuck and Jenny)

Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love a deliciously cheesy teen drama. It all started with 90210, moved on to Dawson’s Creek (Jen Lindley being the only blond temptress I’ve ever sympathized with), graduated to Felicity, then, after a too-long dry spell, the gloriously witty O.C. (the first season, anyway) and lately, during my second dry spell and albeit a little late to the game, One Tree Hill.

Now, I have Gossip Girl. Let’s just hope it’s not Josh Schwartz’s answer to Hidden Palms. (Shame on you for that one, Kevin Williamson.)

So, here we go. My first impressions of what I hope will encompass my Wednesday nights for the foreseeable future.

9:06 p.m.: Our first look at Serena: She looks old—are those frown lines that I see? Update: IMDB tells me the actress is just shy of being old enough to drink. Unfortunate. (Also, a side note: These actors all have names as ridiculously upper-class and white-bred as their fictional counterparts: Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Taylor Momsen—Chace Crawford?)

9:08: Peter Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks” plays in the background at Grand Central. I’m not sure how I feel about this, especially since it’s followed by an extremely outdated Justin Timberlake song (by a high schooler’s standards, anyway. I mean, it was JT's musical diatribe to Britney’s alleged cheating—so circa 2002).

9:13: As for Blair—wtf is up with that bow on her head?

9:20: At least Jenny’s cute. I love how after everyone introduces themselves to her, she says, “I know.”

9: 26: Ooh, first secret rendezvous between Serena and Nate. Hmm… uneventful. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a duller supposed-to-be heartthrob.

9:30: Blair is deliciously bitchy. I already feel myself sympathizing with her á la Brenda Walsh over that blond bubbleheaded and oft-coveted Kelly—er, I mean Serena.

9:37: So far, I have yet to hear any of Schwartz’s characteristic Seth Cohen-Summer Roberts banter. Sigh.

9:41: B’s mom: “You will never be more beautiful or thin or happy than you are right now. I just want you to enjoy it.” There it is.

9:45: Dan Humphrey is so quickly becoming Serena’s Noel Crane.

9:51: I think I’ve heard this music playing in the background of the fight scene on an episode of Melrose Place.

10:00 p.m. I may be hooked, but something within me remains skeptical. What Gossip Girl lacks in wit, it certainly makes up for with dra-ma. However, Schwartz needs to amp up the music choices. There was not one song in the entire episode that I felt compelled to immediately download and put on a playlist for my boyfriend. Even the network is hinting at something. The CW didn’t even do its standard, “Tonight’s episode featured music by…”

Until next Wednesday—you know you love it. Ha!