The New Yorker Reviews "Gossip Girl," aka “S.A.T.’s & the City”

In the new issue of the New Yorker, writer Nancy Franklin devotes some 1,600 words to digging into the CW’s New York-based coming-of-age drama series “Gossip Girl.” Her verdict? Meh.

New York can prop a show up—there’s always something to look at, and so many layers of references to draw on—and “Gossip Girl,” to a great extent, coasts on its setting, on preëstablished meanings. There’s even a dream involving Audrey Hepburn and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” But there isn’t much more than meets the eye here, despite the conspiratorial, knowing tone of the narrator; Gossip Girl tells us at the beginning of each episode, in a singsong, actressy tone, that she’s our “one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s élite.” She sounds like a teen-age Donald Trump, full of hot air and clichés about New York.

And like a teenage Donald Trump, neither real numbers nor, apparently, critical success can stand in her way.