Last night saw the debut of the CW's "Gossip Girl," which some media outlets have called "the most important TV show ever." But how did it play with its target audience right here in Manhattan? We sent Josh and Richard Blakeley to investigate.

We had anticipated the premiere of new YA book-based series 'Gossip Girl' so hotly! And now it is upon us. How to even begin to catalog the things we enjoyed about this exquisite blend of O.C. and U.E.S.?

At the premiere of Gossip Girl, an overly excited The OC fan provides series creator Josh Schwartz with a chilling preview of his epitaph: "Oh my God! He's the genius behind Ben McKenzie!" [Gatecrasher, 2nd item]

That white witch Alessandra Stanley doesn't like the CW's "Gossip Girl." In today's Times, she faults the show for not being as good as the books; while they "are often criticized as a devolution from Judy Blume's coming-of-age novels, they are actually closer to children's literature. Like 'Peter Pan,' 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' or the 'Harry Potter' series, these novels are fantasies and projections of an imaginary world where parents are dead or peripheral, and lost boys and girls struggle on their own with good and evil, or in this case, Bergdorf Goodman and evil." Oh yeah? Screw you, Bruno Bettelheim, you don't mess with the most amazing show OF THE YEAR. [NYT]

Tonight's arrival of the new television show Gossip Girl on the CW is at least the most important event of the week. It is a real-life doomsday scenario for us, in which the lives of 10 wealthy Upper East Side teenagers somehow become intangibly yet irrevocably ingrained into our consciousness. Last night I went into the Tora Bora caves of the Gossip Girls premiere party at Tenjune. Someone had unrolled a black carpet and some velvet rope. On one side, a claque of television cameras and desperate reporters clutching iPods with microphone attachments scrummed with each other to get a quote. On the other, these newly-minted slender starfolk fielded sycophantic questions. The mastermind, "The OC" creator Josh Schwartz, showed up shorter and nicer then expected. "Thanks for the piece," he said. "I really liked it." Was he being sarcastic? Is having your show compared to the largest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor a good thing these days?

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE from our special correspondent at the Madison Square Park-adjacent shooting area for Gossip Girl: "Um, there's a big crane parked there now. That is all.

Admit it: You're dying to see "Gossip Girl" (premiering September 19th at 9 p.m.!), the new CW show that pulls back the curtain on the lives of spoiled rich kids on the Upper East Side. It's not just aimed at the youngsters. It's also brilliantly engineered, we think, to be enjoyed by those over 16 as a guilty pleasure—though we know there's no such thing. Now we've obtained this one minute clip, which demonstrates exactly why "Gossip Girl" is the show that will define a generation of New Yorkers. Culturally, this just might be bigger than... gosh, we'd say 9/11, but Chris Crocker already used that one about Britney today.

Now that "Gossip Girl" is upon us, what will be the next Young Adult book series to be made into a megahyped TV series? Our money's on The Luxe, by Anna Godberson. Harper Teen's going out with an enormous first print in December, aiming to duplicate the success of high-concept vampire young adult smash Twilight. The Luxe has no vampires, but it does feature another bestseller-bait ingredient: rich, spoiled Manhattan teenagers. The twist? It's 1899.

Note to set-crashers: "Gossip Girl," according to no parking signs, is shooting off Madison Square Park tomorrow, circa E. 25th Street or so, so you can go see the shallow for yourself. The T.V. show, which debuts next week and is about private school hissy fits between power-hungry bitches and date rapists and Upper East Side youngster alcohol consumption and a tawdry New York semi-blog, is getting a ton of advance, including in today's Times, even though it's on CW, one of those channels we don't really associate with a number. I've seen the pilot. It gives me that terrible trashy super-eww end times feeling. This means that it will be an incredible success.