I ♥ Television

His Purple Mountain's Majesty

“WTF?”, I hear you saying.  Who is this, and why has he hijacked “I ♥ Television?”

A brief introduction:

I ain’t no blog terrorist: just a man with an abiding passion for red, green and blue pixels transmitted via cathode ray (or high-tech equivalent) directly into my visual cortex .  You can call me “Gene.”

And, without further ado, the inaugural post regarding last night’s episode of Gossip Girl (CW Mondays 8:00 EST), “The Ex-Files”:

I’m not a big Gossip Girl guy.  The program elicits full-on tizzies of devotion from its faithful — I like it and all, but I’m not speaking in tongues just yet.  (Not hating on those of the GG Church, by the by — just giving you the necessary preface for my rundown.)

Last night’s episode saw the aftermath of Serena and Dan’s broken romance.  It’s gone all kinds of wrong: Serena drank!  Dan mumbled!  Amanda, Dan’s sophomore date, had her hair burned off!  And much of this dastardly doing courtesy of his Purple Mountain Majesty, Chuck!

Much of this could be forecast: after all, the series requires the kinetic energy created by Serena and Dan’s rumbling off-and-on romance.  Standard stuff: it’s de rigeur for an up-and-coming show to have some sexy things to keep fickle viewers glued to their sets.  Witness NBC Thursdays since 1982 — Sam and Diane, Sam and Rebecca, Ross and Rachel, Pam and Jim, Jake and Dylan (shit! Gene dropped a Good Morning, Miami! reference! CLEAR THE DECKS!).

What interests me is not whether Serena and Dan stay together, but rather how the writers of GG keep us interested in their relationship before the show flames out.  Season 2 began with a classic trope: Serena and Dan have broken up and loving each other so much that they are looking to destroy one other.  Meanwhile, interested parties, your Chucks & Blairs, play up the intrigue to make the liaisons good and dangerous.  Let the hate sex begin!

If Gossip Girl is going to become more than The OC and graduate from senior year, Josh Schwartz et al are going to need to create a mythology bigger than its component parts.  I have absolute no idea how that’s done, but I’ll be keeping tabs to see it all plays out.

P.S. All of this also applies to The Office too.  Look for some compare & contrast in the coming weeks!

P.P.S Chuck’s a Purple Mountain Majesty because of the spiffy purple tuxedo that he sported at the end of the episode.  I’ll see if I can run down a screenshot of this bad boy.  Update: Found one!  Thanks, KK!