Critic Reviews
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This is Gossip Girl, so obviously there are love triangles and betrayals and backstabbing and upsettingly grown-up teen machinations. Some of those threads titillate. Some are incredibly dumb. Which is to say, it is every bit the soap opera you’d expect. Those are the diversions that hook you in each episode. ... But these diversions only work because they’re bolstered by some actually heady thematics.
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Outside of Gossip Girl as a revived cyberbully, the show expands the cast of core characters into a group of friends with dynamics both familiar and refreshing.
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Although there’s nudity, cursing, and suggestive marketing material, the show’s plot lines like walking red carpets, dueling parties, cruising bathhouses, and finding out parents’ secret romantic trysts seem, well, safe.
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The old magic isn’t back yet in a woke reboot that forgets a guilty conscience is no substitute for a guilty pleasure. But when these privileged teens get their digital knives out the result is wicked, compulsively watchable fun and deliciously addictive.
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The camp aspects of the show aren’t funny, but the excess often is. ... The men of “Gossip Girl” are almost uniformly inept, ineffectual and/or incessantly annoying. ... But the women in the show—and their relationships—often ring true. Even better, they’re entertaining. So are their witty asides.
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The revised premise, which I’ve been asked not to say much more about before the premiere drops, requires some willful suspension of disbelief. But if you can make that leap, the setup works surprisingly well.
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Yes, this is a sexier, more drug-fueled and risqué “Gossip Girl,” but only by a matter of degrees. It’s not all debauchery and the conflict generally comes from character and not gender (so far, no cat fights).
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Like the original, this "GG" can be pithy and clever (that Forster line tells you as much) but unlike the original, at times glum and muddled too. It's a sibling-rivalry drama set in the age of Instagram and COVID, where social media is the true villain. That part may be accurate — just not quite as much fun.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 20
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Mixed: 1 out of 20
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Negative: 9 out of 20
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Jul 8, 2021
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Nov 25, 2021This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Jul 28, 2021This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.