Though rumors continue that the CW may not outlive May sweeps, last night's ratings provided a bit of good news for the network: Gossip Girl, which has never managed to translate its huge New York media buzz into actual nationwide ratings, earned its highest numbers ever (3.7 million viewers), and along with One Tree Hill, contributed to the best Monday night in CW history. Does the 11% boost in viewers from Gossip's past two episodes bode well for a possible 90210 resurgence tonight, since the latter drama saw its numbers fall in its second outing? We'll know tomorrow whether all the babydaddy drama has paid off, or if the show's continued slide in the ratings will presage an emergency rescue from one very hirsute West Bev alum. [THR]

Last night was the night the lights went out on Broadway, as the Gossip Girl kids (and the adults too) were cast into darkness. There was a New York City-wide power outage on the teen soap, a time for furtive sexual dealings and sad, quiet truths to be whispered to lovers, safe from the harsh light of electricity. But, because this is Gossip Girl, it was also sort of a metaphor for erectile dysfunction. Our story began with a heatwave, the sort of sweltering New York late summer day that drives me (and Chuck) to drink. But apparently these young people prefer to work hard! at their fashion internships, and suck mug in vestibules, and try to seduce their floppy fish wet blanket British lord boyfriends. Yes, Dan and Serena were still making kissy and sexy and Chuck was drinking away the blues and Blair was trying to get Lord Foppington to hoppington into the sack. Alas she was foiled because he wanted it to be special. Because that's what most 20-year-old boys are like. Though Derena were shagging like mad, they still hadn't Talked About Their Issues. You know, that kind of supreme emotional baggage often associated with high school seniors. Serena cooed softly and cocked her head in that pigeon way of hers and Dan grimaced a lot, like Garfield without his lasagna, and somewhere an old Amish man sat slowly weaving on a spindle and it was somehow more exciting than this crazy/boring couple. Though it was kind of terrific when those three little girls, all be-Blaired in Central Park, gave the couple a rundown of their own relationship as they understood it from the popular gossip website GossipGirl. So fun to see the website used again! And it was a bit of an "aha!" vague wagging of a finger at some general idea of the internet on the writers' part. "Take that... computers." Meanwhile Nate continued to give the blocks to Jessica Tandy, much to his chagrin. You see he'd been made something of a gigolo, though he really wanted to be with his sexy Brooklyn Latina goddess Vanessa. Maria Vanessa seemed equally interested in Nate, but why is quite unclear. Their little cutesy interactions involved Jessica Szohr puckering her face while, inside Chace Crawford's head, that Amish man's spindle turned and turned and turned. But whatever it is they're feeling, they believe it to be love. Too bad for them that Old Lady Witherspoon caught them canoodling on the street. Evil machinations ensue! And then there's poor Chuck, who is drinking and smoking himself into oblivion because, erm, he he hasn't got any wind in his sails. His rocket's outta fuel. Um... other... euphemisms. Yeah, he can't get it up and the only way he thinks he can is if he "cleans the pipes" with Blair one last time ("emotional sexual Drano," Serena calls it). Thus the scene is laid for yet another party, this one supposedly for Polly Penington's Private School for People seniors and their parents. Things that happened at the party: Chuck groped Blair and said "make love" (because that's what 17-year-old boys say) then he whispered something dirrrty in her ear. Blair shook him off. Vanessa caught Nate holding hands with the naked old lady from that one horrible scene in The Shining and was totes grossed out. Then the power went out! Meanwhile Dan and Serena were trapped in an elevator. The only interesting thing that happened was that Dan fell down. Dan fell down in the elevator and I laughed a lot. Probably too much. And then they broke up. Hooray! Meanwhile back at Little Lord Fauntleroy's Poopie Prep senior mixer, Blair demanded bonage from Foppington, telling him to meet her in her room. Chuck went instead, they commenced making out, then the lights came back on and everyone was sad because Foppington now knew the wicked truth. Downstairs the pile of ancient dust wearing a wig was telling Vanessa to skedaddle lest she reveal Nate's dad's secret location to the FBI. Again, everyone was sad. I suppose things happened with little J-sephina, but meh. I'm not going to cover her boring and silly plotlines (15-year-old has an internship at a major fashion house! no!) until they bring back her little queer counterpart. I kind of hate shows that have a gay following, tease a little bit about a gay story, thinking they've satisfied everyone! fabulous!, and then sweep it back under the rug. Not to be uppity, but it rankles. Anyway, this initially flaccid episode definitely perked up when the blackout gave it a big ol' shot of Viagra. Things got exciting, everyone got excited, even ol' man Humphrey got a date. All the lights eventually came back on and in the end Dan and Vanessa gazed out at old Manhattan glittering there across the river and then there was music and then the rest was silence. Much like sex. The sex that Blair and Chuck didn't have. Yet.

You know how PR agencies are—always looking for a way to do some selfless charity work. So international PR machine Porter Novelli came up with a great idea: round up a bunch of its young staffers and offer their inexperienced services free to those who need it most: fashion companies, models, and Penn Badgley's mom. Paying it forward is what it's all about! The little "pop up agency" within PN is called "Jack and Bill," and it displays its digital new media online internet publicity chops with a microsite, Facebook page, and a Flickr page! Needy (heh) fashion clients had to audition to win the services of the eight young 20-something staffers. They graciously picked a lawyer-turned-stylist, an apparel company, a model, and this dynamic duo:

Oh, look. Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester was on Entourage last night, recurring her first season role as a virginal (sorta) singer and love interest for Vinnie Chase. We're not sure this exactly counts as a cameo, considering this was already an established role and Leighton Meester isn't exactly a cameo-worthy household name yet. But there were three other big cameos on last night's episode. And that, maybe, is three cameos too many. I mean, yes, one of the major conceits of Entourage is that it is an inside look at Hollywood, which is full, duh, of celebrities. But it's begun to feel like a desperate stunt to mask the show's flailing quality level. Trotting out Tony Bennett, Giovanni Ribisi, and series exec-producer Mark Wahlberg in one episode? Too much distraction from an already cobbled-together plot. Especially that Wahlberg bit, which was self-deprecating in a kind of depressing way. A show like Gossip Girl has placed its handful of cameos more sparingly. The Jay McInerney and Tinsley Mortimer bits were wry winks to its New York audience base. Entourage's used to be the same way—an occasional "look who's willing to make fun of themselves" or "look how silly LA is" kind of thing. Lately though they come off as slathering over-showmanship. Kind of like Ari's swearing and Turtle's horniness and Drama's now-cartoonish buffoonery, come to think of it.

Remember those risque Gossip Girl posters that promoted the teen soap by using quotes from objectionable reviews, like the Boston Herald calling it "every parents nightmare"? They were fun! And dangerous. And now we have a new quote from the marketing folks to slap up on the ads. It comes from Stephen Baldwin, the bloated born-again brother of superior actor Alec, who delivered a "20 minute rant" at the Family Research Council Action's Values Voter Summit, calling the show "trash" and saying that those OMFG posters were "mocking God." Great line! Our Photoshop guy, Steven Dressler, has put that quote up on our favorite poster, for your and Mr. Baldwin's enjoyment. Click for larger.

If you're reading this right now, they you probably weren't out all of last night partying it up on the Lower East Side ... with the "Gossip Girl" cast!!@#!1!!! Can you believe it? Hollywood stars right here in our little town! OMFG, indeed. Photos, stalker stories, and catering truck reviews should be sent here, so that this editor can finally figure out what this show actually is. We do have a couple of mini-reports so far and you'll never guess who Chase is kissing now! (He's the gay one right?) Spoiler alert?

Though Blake Lively has absolved America Ferrera of her notorious, Gossip Girl-directed eye roll (claiming that it was simply due to exhaustion from hours of Traveling Pants 2 promotion), it seems like Ferrera didn't get the "XOXO"-signed memo. In a new interview with Seventeen, the Ugly Betty actress heaps more criticism on her friend's show; ironically, it's while decrying how catty girls can be to one another:

Backstage at the Michael Kors fashion show, Hollywood legend Bette Midler offered a bit of advice to up and coming Gossip Girl star Blake Lively. Midler knew that Lively was probably wearing a Kors design, but mentioned to her that her hemline could've been a bit longer. Midler said, "Honey, it's far too early in your career to pull a Julianna Margulies. You don't have to be a old lady who's in her thirties just yet, but right above the knee is nice length for you to wear. Classy and sexy." Lively chuckled as she told Milder that she was going to write that bit of advice down on her Blackberry.

My distinguished colleagues at Daily Intel are in something of a snit today over some recent cameo-casting news from the cruel temptresses at Gossip Girl. On an upcoming episode of the unpopular teen soap will be, of course, a party. And at that party will be two editors from In Style magazine, making cameos as themselves. Also making cameos will be dozens of brand-name products. Then all of that will be tied up in a nice little bundle and covered in the magazine as a "real event." Whee for awkward, product placement synergy! But it's not the first time it's happened on the show. After the jump, we'll take a look at four other cameos, of people and things, that have appeared on the show and rate their Product Placement-ness, on scale from one to ten.

Hangovers are funny. A particularly insufferable one last Friday morning prompted me to write a post about why no one watches teen soap Gossip Girl (no one does) in which I wrote that I do not, in fact, like the show. And, you know, I sorta still don't—I like the idea of what it could be much better—but it's really hard to say the show has no merits when last night's episode was so... good! Good indeed. Funny and plot-filled and slightly open-ended enough to allow for continued interesting stories in the coming weeks. So yeah. Today, at last, I come to praise Gossip Girl, not to bury it. While a few early scenes did take place out on Long Island, the fun picked up when everyone packed up and limo'd and Jitney'd back to pointy old Manhattan (well, OK, Dan went back to butcher block Brooklyn). Serena and the Humph couldn't stop knocking boots, even on that Hamptons-to-New York bus (that has nothing to do with the August Wilson play). They touched hands and then Serena ate the biggest strawberry known to man and that was enough to send them over the edge. They boffed in the bathroom and then decided they needed to take a break and then they boffed some more. Nate, poor Nate. He haz teh biggest sad evar. His pops is out on the lam, so the Feds are taking all his sweet, sweet haircut-buying money. His moms is all "let's borrow from Chuckles Bass," but Nate won't have it. Instead, he'd like to hit up his old lady, that forty-something-year-old he's been diddling (so far no enormous berries have been involved). So she sorta makes him her kept boy, giving him little envelopes of cash for services rendered. Meanwhile Uta Hagen rolls in her grave because Chace Crawford conveys all of these ups and downs with the same befuddled look. It's like a moth batting at a light in a dim old farmhouse. The only time he mustered something bordering on real was when he asked Chuck if he had a girl with him and then laughed because it's funny to think of his real-life boyfriend being with a girl. Oh, and about that old lady. She's the Duchess, step-mother to that guy Lord Foppington who Blair is trying desperately to hold onto. They kind of have this weird sexy-pex relationship, the Duchess and Foppington, but mostly I guess she glowers about his girlfriends. Blair threw a hilariously last-minute party (with the help of weary, delightful, text-message-receiving Dorota) in the hopes of impressing Foppington and the Duchess, but it was boring and pretend and the Duchess hated it and Blair insulted her bad botox. But then, heh, Blair caught Nate handing the Duchess her scepter and after yelling "oh my effing God!" she blackmailed a stamp of approval out of the mountain lion. Other things happened like Vanessa feeling sad about Nate and flirting, horrendously creepily, with Pa Humphrey, who has returned from his wild, Kerouacian travels across this great gurgling nation of ours, playing muzaks. He thought about going back on the road, but then after seeing some photos of his children doing perfectly well without him, he decided they needed him. Then they all had dinner and Dan said he was writing a novel and I cried bitter tears because no, Dan, you are not writing a novel. So yes. The episode was great and funny and full of intrigue and double-entendres and all that fun bitchy stuff you can only hope for, many times in vain, with this show. Series co-creator Stephanie Savage wrote the episode, which I'm sure didn't hurt. Please continue on this course, thanks. And please just lock Chace Crawford in a glass case and have him dance silently. Anything else is just... [befuddled squint]

If you weren't planning to go drinking on the Lower East Side next Tuesday evening, change your plans. This photo was taken on the corner of Ludlow and Rivington last night, warning locals that Gossip Girl will be shooting in the area starting at 8:00 p.m. Tuesday. Who will be there? Blake? Chace? Teamsters? Maybe you know someone with rooftop access and you happen to have a carton of expired eggs handy! Unless Michelle Trachtenberg is still on the show, in which case back off. No one touches Dawny! Click through for bigger pic.

Oh hey there! On the cover of this week's Entertainment Weekly Fall TV Preview is Gossip Girl, that much crowed-about teenage soap opera about horrendous idiots milling about the Upper East Side of that island across the river from me. You see, it's the buzziest show in a buzz-happy medium, people like gossips and the internet are writing about it and legions of squealing, sexually-awakening girls are flocking to its mop-topped (and bottomed) male leads as if they were sex magnets, and these young ladies mere paperclips. But there's just one little thing, one nagging flaw that the accompanying article has to attend to. If it's so damn popular, why isn't it... popular? Yes! The show gets abysmally low ratings—it was 150th in the listings for last year. The article trots out all the old horses: it's internetting, it's DVRing, it's being secretly downloaded into vaginae nationwide! Which, fine, might be true. But the real answer to this ratings mystery is that the show can't possibly live up to the mind-numbingly loud buzzzz. It's kind of a self-perpetuating animal, this Gossip Girl frenzy. People click and then you write more and then people click more and then you write more and so on and so on until you are nothing but Frankenstein chasing his monster to the ends of the Earth, hoping—mad and frothing—to one day destroy it. I talk about the show like it's my damn job or something (wait a tick!) and I don't even like it! You heard that? I don't like Gossip Girl. I like what it could be, but what it is currently is something like a soggy piece of celery. All bland flavor and diminished crisp. And that's why it gets low ratings! Because it's not good. And no one really, sincerely, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, gives a shit. It's like the election. Errrrbody's all talkin' about Sarah Palin and doing side-splitting parody and all that, but come November 4th ain't but a half of those people who are gonna vote. That's just history! What the CW (the "network" that airs the dreck) needs to do is actually rein in the buzz a bit. It's gotten to the point where you seriously don't need to watch the show in order to have some sort of informed "30 is the new zygote!" with-it conversation. "Oh yeah I totes saw that photo of Blake and Chesterly kissing while Credenza and Toucan Sam looked on. Yeah. What a moment." It's not hard. Let's create a little more mystery, with just the occasional tease here and there. It will make my job a mite bit harder, but the show could maybe attain that level of "oohhh what isss it??" curiosity that other oddities like the original 90210 developed, to great success. (That was before the internet. Sigh. Simpler times.)

With what new angle could a reporter possibly respond to the all-encompassing, all-powerful juggernaut that is the Gossip Girl publicity machine? Given that the actors who play Blair, Serena, Jenny, Dan, Chuck, and Nate are about neck and neck media attention-wise with the presidential candidates, you wouldn't think there'd be many. You would, course, be wrong: Today's story is about how the dining and drinking haunts frequented by the characters, like Geisha on East 61st Street and Gilt at the Palace Hotel, are pulling in business from viewers who want to order the same dishes and sit at the same table. "We have men in their 50s asking for the grilled cheese sandwich and asking where Blair and Serena sat,'' says The Palace. Mmm, creepy. But presumably they also get teenagers ordering cocktails and expecting not to get carded—because Chuck and Blair never do!

In this time of economic woe, those of us stranded in the middle and lower classes aren't circling the wagons, trying to protect what little stake we've left. Instead we're looking at those people far across the income gap—the fantastic private jet-having super rich—congratulating and emulating them and waving them to greener shores while we stand dumbly on the docks. Or so argues Alessandra Stanley in a Times trend piece today, using the new hyper-moneyed 90210 as a springboard. You see those kids aren't just rich like they might have been on such a show thirty years ago, with a sports car and a nice haircut. In this "new," cash-obsessed post-Reagan era, your typical rich kids are Aaron Spelling rich. With like private planes and hugely expensive birthday parties and $800 just-because! friend presents. Even the new kids in town—fresh from storied rube-mill Kansas!—don't live in a humble shack. No, they live in a big stucco mansion with their prodigal rich kid dad, their fashionista mother, and their boozy former actress of a grandmother. That's the new poor! Same goes for the humble Humphreys on the east coast money fest Gossip Girl who, as the penniless kids in town, live in a modestly sprawling DUMBO loft with their former rockstar, gallery owner dad. Our fascination with bank accounts not our own represents some kind of political pandemic, Stanley argues:

Gossip Girl arch bitch Blair Waldorf isn't really the tony high society-born lioness she seems. In fact, she's the jail-born daughter of a convicted drug felon with a whole family's worth of shady criminal stories. Wait, that's actually a little too exciting and down-'n-dirty for the reasonably staid show ("I killed someone," confessed a bedraggled Serena last season; and by killed she meant sorta just didn't call 911). It's actually the kind of drahhhma that you can't make up. Leighton Meester, the actress who smartly plays Blair on the silly teen soap, was the one born in prison while her mother served time for her connections to a drug ring. Yikes. To add to the sad Texas pile, her father, aunt, and grandfather also spent time behind bars for various druggery. Wait a second. The season just started! This is far too early for such gangbusters reveals. Save it for sweeps, people! Sweeeeps. [Star] My second-favorite shocking GG reveal is after the jump.

We're sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the inescapable press blitz for Gossip Girl, but Star is reporting that Leighton Meester was born behind bars. (Apparently, her mother was serving a federal prison sentence in Texas for running a drug ring at the time.) And now her agent has a great story to shop around to studios this afternoon. [Star]

So how did the Gossip Girl kids spend their summer vacation? The wicked New York teen soapers spent it growing like weeds (Jenny! Erik! so big!) and meeting British lords and somehow boning older ladies and forgetting how to act (but not how to glower) and meandering their way right back to where we started. This was all evidenced by last night's kinda zippy, mostly fun, but slightly off-tone second season premiere, which reunited us with old and somewhat-changed friends (just like the ends of real summer vacations! oh that strange and ineffable sadness!) and introduced several new stories whose details I'm sure we'll skim, like tiny bugs over deep pools of water, for these first yawning and stretching new episodes. If I sound a little underwhelmed it's only because I think the show's PR machine consistently sets up impossibly high standards for this usually well-written, only minimally well-directed teen soap. How can the show itself ever hope to live up to the genius poster ads, or the scintillatingly brief TV spots? The show itself is fine, good enough even, but the ad campaigns are just so, so much better. Anyway, that media critique aside, things actually did happen! Jenny spent the summer toiling away—like a blonde, statuesque, well-fed Asian child in a factory—for Eleanor Waldorf's clothing line, while that lady who used to be on Law & Order: SVU towered over her, making her sort buttons. But Jenny had a dress and it was pretty in a Lemoncake Stupid Society way and she wanted to go the Hamptons White Party (no not the "cool" Diddy one, the lame and sparsely-attended one thrown by Vitamin Water) so so so bad. Enter the genially useless gay token Erik van der Woodsen, who was still mad at her about something or other but decided to put her "on probation" and escort her to the gala. They got to meet Tinsley Mortimer! But, more on that later. Meanwhile in Humphrey wanna hump hump land, Dan's summer writing internship involved more making out in liberry stacks while Jay McInerney read aloud from a 25-year-old novel than it did actually, you know, writing. See the problem is, these empty girls he was snogging just weren't his muses. That would be Serena (who later on in the episode was dressed in an awfully Grecian, muse-like outfit), his months-long-lost love who disappeared into the summer green abstract of the Hamptons after their relationship crumbled due to murder and lies and drunkenness. Though fired from his internship for not producing any writing, Dan decided to head to the Hamptons to pursue his love and his story. Speaking of that green abstract, give the cinematographer(s) a raise for the beautiful sunlight-through-Hamptons-trees motif used throughout the episode's establishing shots. Just lovely. Not as lovely were Serena's mopey, increasingly who-the-fuck-cares face and Nate's embarrassing attempt at a meaningful character arc: eldersex. OK, hah hah I kid the lady wasn't old, she was like thirty-five. But the story was so wan and weak. It just felt like such a toss-off by the writers, making it even sadder than usual to watch Chace Crawford try to mold his porcelain face into believable facial expressions and say lines like the way real people say them. He tried, though. Even through that ridiculous are-they-trying-extra-hard-to-make-him-gay creamish cardigan of his, he tried. Serena and Dan were reunited at the White Party, of course, and, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up meeting cute on the beach, Serena in goddess/muse mode, Dan looking like a chorus boy from South Pacific. Thus begins another year of living completely not dangerously. As for the most interesting characters, Blair and Chuck, they had another little pas de deux of double crosses and deceptions. Well, OK, that makes it sound a little more exciting than it actually was. Mainly Blair trotted a fake boyfriend in front of Chuck, successfully trying to make him feel jealous and sad. Ed Westwick seemingly forgot how to act over the summer (or maybe he never knew) and said each line with the same kitty cat purr that charmed a bit last season and is now kind of tired and grating. Blair's boy turned out to not be the apple pie-fed all American Princeton/Georgetown boy he'd advertised himself as, rather he is a British lord who, apparently having seen the Julia Stiles epic The Prince & Me (come on Joshua Safran, come on), decided to keep his identity a secret so he could be treated as just a regular filthy rich person. In the end Chuck couldn't say "elephant chew" and Blair left with British McSeersucker. I am, of course, saving the best thing for last. That would be Tinsley Mortimer, a socialite whose mind got up and wandered off years ago, who made a cameo as herself, helping young Jenny's burgeoning Tello's career. She said her few lines not so much woodenly, but as if she were spirited away behind some three inch piece of steel. There was her body and her mouth moving and then there were words, coming sort of sideways out of her. I almost wanted to break it up into its tips and taps, hoping to decipher some submerged battleship morse code message. But I didn't have the time. There's a metaphor for the show in there somewhere, but we'll have to wait to unpack that on some other day. Ultimately the episode didn't quite get the balance between levity and gravity quite right. Moments shifted awkwardly between campy and maudlin (a fine, fine line that this young cast isn't quite capable of treading) and, as always, everything was too easy. Just like the croquet game they played—inaccurately, I may add! you hold the mallet between your legs and swing back and forth! those boys ought to know a thing or two about that!—in which every single ball went through the wicket. Languid ease on a sprawling summer lawn is all well and good, but it doesn't make for arresting drama. Here's hoping the trip back to grimy, sticky Manhattan reignites that wicked flame that was blown out last night, hopefully temporarily, like a Tiki torch snuffed in balmy beach winds.

Normally TV producers wait until a show is flagging in its 5th or 6th season to wheel on the newsworthy cameos, but Gossip Girl, perhaps due to its eagerness to maintain an authentic elitey-glamour, is piling them on already. Last night's season two debut featured Jay McInerney playing himself with a different name, and Tinsley Mortimer playing herself period.

When Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick are confronted with the fact that everyone wants them to be totally gay for each other (or indeed for anyone), they're forced to tap dance along a thin line between enthuasiastically avowing their absolute heterosexuality and not in any way alienating their fanbase. (Says Ed: "It's not true, but hilarious... People project their fantasies...") For women, though, the issue is just not so stressful: Queen B. Leighton Meester, for example, is delighted to be a Sapphic object of desire.

[Blake Lively, a human being who exists, outside the David Letterman variety hour old person show last night; image via Splash]