Gossip Grill

Some may poo-poo our review of the CW’s new teen angstfest, “_Gossip Girl_.”:http://cwtv.com/shows/gossip-girl True, many TV critics came out with their reviews even before the show aired, but how many of them consulted with actual Upper East Side teens about what they thought? Not too damn many we imagine, but then, very few of our peers share our work ethic. Our research taught us that if we were teenage girls from the Upper East Side we would probably like the show a _lot_. However, insofar as Jewdar is a more-or-less adult male from the Lower East Side, we have the following criticisms:

1. The “lead actress”:http://cwtv.com/shows/gossip-girl/cast/blake-lively looks closer to 37 than 17.

2. The characters can all be found, and found better, on _The OC_: the bad it-girl trying to become good that-girl, the poor boy trying to make it in a world of privilege, his comic sidekick (Seth in _The OC_, Dan’s sister here), the society mom with white-trash background, the cool/artsy dad _in_ the society world but not _of_ the society world, the jock/boyfriend whose dad wants to micromanage his life (and who, at some point, will doubtlessly say something like “I don’t want to play lacrosse, I want to be a figure skater!”), and lastly, the creepy son of rich hoteliers (see “Oliver”:http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/7/75/OliverTrask.jpg from _The OC._)

3. The character, “Chuck Bass,”:http://cwtv.com/shows/gossip-girl/cast/ed-westwick is creepy and gross, and his sole role in the show is to squint, flare his nostrils, smirk like Dr. Evil and say things to suggest that he is really rich and depraved and louche.

4. NO JEWS! Are we nuts, or is this show taking place in some sort of alternate reality where the “German-American Bund”:http://rexcurry.net/pledgebund.html succeeded in conquering Yorkville and making it Judenrein? The one ray of hope is a character named “Kati Farkas”:http://cwtv.com/shows/gossip-girl/cast/nan-zhang, but for some reason, we’re not optimistic.