[Actresses Chace Crawford and Blake Lively on a break from filming "Gossip Girl" in New York City last night; image via Splash]

Michelle Trachtenberg has proven herself the ideal go-to actress for naughty TV guest appearance: When she portrayed Sarah Michelle Gellar's "normal" little sister on Buffy, she had a penchant for kleptomania, on Law & Order: CI, she masterfully outwitted the cops and the media by staging an online kidnapping, and she perfected the demanding pop star character of Celeste on Six Feet Under. So it's no surprise that the actress's upcoming guest appearance on Gossip Girl will feature her wreaking havoc on fellow rehabber Serena. We're not sure possessing the natural ability to portray bitchy sidekicks is a blessing or a curse, but in Michelle's case, we always find her small-screen bad-girl characters are ones worth rooting for. [THR]

Michelle Trachtenberg, the actress who threatened to destroy Buffy the Vampire Slayer for three seasons (mission failed, mostly) has just signed on for a role on the Upper East Side rich kids soap Gossip Girl. She'll play the wicked troublemaker Georgina Sparks, who gives current "bad girl" Blair Waldorf a run for her money in the arbitrary bitchiness department. Trachtenberg, an entirely irritating actress, once again tromps all over a show I watch (though Gossip Girl has nowhere near as far to fall as Buffy did.) Either way, I'm the only one who watches the damn thing, so no one really cares. It'll just be me brooding away in my darkened living room, my cobwebby wedding cake rotting beside me, lamenting things long, long lost. [TV Guide via Fimoculous]

[Blake Lively and Leighton Meester film "Gossip Girl" in New York today; image via Splash]

[Leighton Meester and Blake Lively on the set of "Gossip Girl" in New York today; image via INF]

That headband might be just a tad too tight, dear old Mischa. After all, how else to explain your decision to publicly pass on Gossip Girl than to blame it on a reduced flow of blood and oxygen to your pre-frontal cortex?

Chace Crawford, the chiseled young actor who plays Nate on Gossip Girl, is, reportedly, moving in with former NSYNC boy band member (and current stupid dance show judge) JC Chasez. O ho! So either they're lovers (which is the scuttlebutt) or the pair just wants to save a little money on rent or something, what with this ever troubling economy and all. Maybe they're just each other's chick chasing "wingman" or whatever; an idea put forth, with convenient timing, by Page Six today. Our theory: "is he or isn't he" gay speculation is one of the cornerstones of success for a show like Gossip Girl, which will never openly court the gays, but always make winking nods in their direction. This is all just the CW manipulating their product and continually tweaking their floppy haired sex robot's hardwiring. Oh, and poor JC? Well, he's just grateful that people know he's alive. [Queerty] After the jump, Crawford talking about kissing girls.

Because the formula is working in an imaginary sort of way with Gossip Girl, The CW has ordered a pilot adapted from another flimsy girly-girl book. This time it's How To Teach Filthy Rich Girls by Zoey Dean, who is also responsible for The A List book series that is currently being developed into a film. Rich Girls is about a young woman who, having been fired from her job at a tabloid magazine, accepts a position tutoring two, uh, filthy rich high school girls in Palm Beach. Love and life lessons ensue, but more importantly there are fabulous clothes and parties. Oh, and bitchiness. Rina Mimoun, who has worked on such highbrow fare as Gilmore Girls and Dawson's Creek will write and executive produce the pilot. Between this, GG, and the two Real Housewives series, we'll get an all too clear idea of just how vain, shallow, and despicable rich people are, while also being constantly reminded how much we desperately want to be rich people. [Variety]

Bastard toddler network The CW has had a bit of a rough time rebounding after the writers strike, its slate failing to find traction with an audience comprised almost entirely of easily distracted tweenagers and confused elderly disappointed to learn they hadn't found a new home for Hee Haw reruns. Six of their series recently learned they had been spared the guillotine, including the always-dependable America's Next Top Model, the under-performing Gossip Girl, and the hanging-by-a-thread Everybody Hates Chris; sadly, however the same could not be said for 25 ill-fated staffers just handed their pink slips—curiously enough, printed on the netlet's branded green. From Variety:

Phew! The horrid possibility that painfully bad actress Mischa Barton might be joining the cast of Gossip Girl has been squelched. Apparently her reps turned it down. Oh good. She must have realized that she's not talented enough even for that show. That must be why. Right? [Us]

Overheard: Mischa Barton, the lanky, deep-voiced, ridiculously untalented former OC actress (ooh ooh! and reckless, drunken motorist!), has been offered a recurring role on the "so 'so bad it's good' it's bad" drama series Gossip Girl. Terrible! She's going to ruin it.

[Gossip Girl's Blake Lively at a Reebok shoes event last night in New York City; image via WENN]

[Mogul Richard Branson with Gossip Girls Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford at the opening of a Virgin Mega Store in Toronto today; image via Splash]

Spotted: Leighton Meester aka Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf at a Grammys after party in Los Angeles, "surrounded by a cloud of funny-smelling smoke. " The 21-year-old actress seems to have a penchant for smokin' joints, if this and this past November's incidents are any indication. I guess this sort of makes up for the totally-scaled-down-from-the-books drug use on the show (which is coming back in April!) Now if we could just get her to shave Vanessa's head, frizz out Jenny's hair, and, well, make Dan gay! [NYP] After the jump, an episode clip of Blair's friend Serena (Blake Lively) totally doped out and having a cutsie water fight.

Gawker's Locker Room, a discussion group for readers still pretending to be red-blooded heterosexual men, is wrestling with a pressing issue. adorably blond Serena or deviously brunette Blair, from the camp TV show, Gossip Girl: which would you rather fuck?

The boys of Gossip Girl are on the cover of this month's Out magazine. Makes sense to us! Fashion, intrigue, perfectly coiffed hair, prep school uniforms, and New York City. What could be gayer than that? As one of the actors on the show describes it, it's "high-camp." In the article, Bill Keith writes: "Gossip Girl is a cultural phenomenon whose early adopters weren't actually teenage girls but rather gay men trapped in arrested development or seeking to vicariously prolong their youth — depending on how you choose to stereotype." Oh, huh. That's actually kind of depressing. Oh well! More pictures, and the article. Click thumb for larger image of the cover.

[Another Gossip Girl cast member, Chace Crawford, at the Prada store in SoHo last night, attending a Fashion Week party; image via Splash]

[Gossip Girl's Blake Lively outside the Letterman show last night; image via INF]

[Gossip Girl's Blake Lively at an Old Navy "Brand Relaunch" party in New York last night; image via INF]

[Taylor Momsen, who plays Jenny Humphrey on 'Gossip Girl', at the launch party for some kind of cellular device in New York last night; image via INF]