Reason #7 I’m Excited That Gossip Girl Is Almost Back

In the final week leading up to the much-anticipated (by me, at least) return of Gossip Girl, I’m offering a countdown of some of the things I like most about the show. Seven days, seven reasons to love the show, culminating in my number one on premiere day, September 1. So, without further ado:

Reason Number Seven
Feeling justified in my criticism of The O.C.

I’m referring specifically to the fact that, lo those many moons ago, when I was an O.C. fan, I enjoyed the show but insisted that it would be about 212% (geddit???) better if it took place in New York. Thus, I feel vindicated that Josh Schwartz has taken to the mean streets of Manhattan for what is, in many ways, the same exact show [honestly: rich but totally laid-back girl dates guy from wrong side of the tracks (Chino=Brooklyn) and has a bitchy, stuck-up, but basically awesome best friend; parents of two of the teen characters (crazy-rich old dude & middle-aged but still thin and gorgeous woman) get married; wrong-side-of-tracks (Brooklyn, ahhh scary!) guy gets into a fight in the first episode, etc.]

I loved the O.C. drama (for about a season and a half), but I always felt like the show suffered from blandness of background. The houses were fancy, the sunsets super-pretty, but the setting just never grabbed me. I have to admit that I’m a New York elitist, and therefore have some prejudices against anything that happens outside the Four Boroughs That Count, but I think there’s one key difference that proves my point:

In its first season, The O.C. had several BIG!SPECIAL! episodes that took the characters to exotic locations—as I recall, they went off to Las Vegas, LA, and Tijuana within the first year. Which is fine, which is lovely, but the fact that the writers felt the need to spice up the scenery so frequently shows that Newport was lacking a certain spark.

Compare that to Gossip Girl, Schwartz’s vastly superior creation, which hasn’t had so much as one scene outside of New York City, as far as I remember. The characters go to other places—we’ve heard mention of Nate’s sailing trip in Maine, the Bass bachelor party in Monte Carlo, and the various spring break shenanigans everybody got up to—but it’s never on-screen, as if anything going on outside the city doesn’t happen in any real sense of the word. I fucking love that. The New York backdrop plays a huge part in my enjoyment of the series, and it's a big part of the reason I'm so excited for its imminent return.

And yeah, I know: the beginning of the new season is going to be all about the Hamptons. Which is basically an extension of the city, a backyard for the fancy. Still counts.