Fall TV Blog

With only four days to go until Gossip Girl’s season 2 premiere, the show’s executive producer Stephanie Savage chatted with PEOPLE.com about what’s in store for everyone’s favorite prep schoolers. “We had so much fun on season 1 establishing these characters and figuring out who they are, what they’re all about and what their relationships are to each other,” she says. “The fun thing about being able to do a second season is being able to go deeper and twist things further.” Savage reveals secrets about Blair’s new love interest, Jenny’s ambitions and whether we’ll see the return of Georgina Sparks.

Where does season 2 pick up?
It’s the end of the summer and we find out what everybody’s done over the course of the holiday, and everybody ends up getting together for a big white party in the Hamptons.

It makes sense that Nate, Chuck, Serena and Blair are summering in the Hamptons. But how do Brooklyn kids Jenny and Dan end up there?
Jenny shows up in the Hamptons on a mission related to her summer internship. She’s been working for [Blair's mom] Eleanor Waldorf all summer, and Jenny is an ambitious girl who doesn’t let much stand between her and her goals, so she finds her way to this party to try and get the eyes and ears of some important people that she wants to impress. And Dan comes on a mission to track down Serena. (more…)

So says the lucky Madchen Amick.

The actress, who plays Nate Archibald’s (Chace Crawford) mature and beautiful love interest on Gossip Girl, has a steamy make out scene with the 23-year-old. And that’s just in the first five minutes of the show’s season two premiere!

Luckily, she’s not above kissing and telling. “He’s a very good kisser,” Amick, 37, says. “If anyone gets the opportunity to kiss him, he will not disappoint.”

The season premiere of the CW show, which airs Monday (8 p.m. ET), catches up with Nate and his fellow privileged pals, Serena (Blake Lively), Blair (Leighton Meester), Chuck (Ed Westwick), Dan (Penn Badgley) and Jenny (Taylor Momsen), at the end of the summer season.

“[Nate] has been keeping busy having an affair with an older married woman,” Amick explains. “Things continue [with Nate], but she gets very intertwined with the other characters and there’s a lot that I’m not supposed to say.”

However, of her four episode arc, Amick will say that “she causes a lot of trouble.” (more…)

It’s another steamy Gossip Girl promo!

With just days to go before the show returns on Sept. 1, the CW is giving fans a look at the first five minutes of the season 2 premiere. After a quick recap of the first season, we see what Nate (Chace Crawford), Serena (Blake Lively), Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Dan (Penn Badgley) have been up to over the summer. It’s definitely been a hot one!

Tell us: What’s going to happen on the first episode?

He plays the ever-arrogant Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl and rocks out with his band, The Filthy Youth, but Ed Westwick has a surprising sensitive side — and a way with words.

“I’ve been writing a lot of poetry recently,” Westwick, 21, revealed to PEOPLE during a launch party for Coca-Cola’s new aluminum bottles at New York City’s Soho Grand. “It helps me think and work things out.”

Westwick shared a poem from memory that he wrote “at like six in the morning.”

But don’t read too much into the words. “Right now I feel like nothing I’ve been writing has a definitive point of aim,” the actor says. “I feel like you just need to keep writing until the writing itself just begins to take shape.” – Laura Hahn and Alyssa Shelasky

Read on for Westwick’s untitled poem:

(more…)

The CW may have a new bicoastal battle on their hands.

The cover of the September issue of fashion mag Nylon, featuring 90210’s Shenae Grimes, AnnaLynne McCord and Jessica Stroup, got us wondering: Could the 90210 newbies outdo their East Coast counterparts, Gossip Girl stars Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Taylor Momsen, in the fashion arena?

Pitting California cool kids against edgy East coast prep-schoolers in a fashion face-off may not be the CW’s intention, but as the debut of 90210 approaches — and its stars pop up on magazine covers and red carpets — we’ll be watching to see if they can keep up with the stylish Gossip Girl stars.

Keep reading to see more photos from Nylon’s shoot.

Tell us: Will the new 90210 be as fashion forward as Gossip Girl? Which cast will have the best style? (more…)

Serena, Blair, Dan, Nate, you’ve got a fan in Lauren Conrad.

In fact, The Hills star says she’d love to guest star on the show in its upcoming sophomore season.

“I love Gossip Girl,” Conrad told E! Online. “I just love it. It’s so gossipy and superficial. It’s amazing.”

Then again, Conrad says she’d rather watch the show. “I probably wouldn’t want to see myself on there because it would ruin it for me,” she says. “I like watching other people get gossiped about. It makes me feel better.”

The star is no stranger to gossip herself. MTV has chronicled her life since her high school days on Laguna Beach. Now she’s entering into the fourth season of her own “reality” show The Hills, which returns Aug. 18.
(more…)

Taylor Momsen, who plays social climber Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girl, has quickly becoming the breakout star of the CW show, according to the New York Observer.

While her co-stars Chace Crawford and Blake Lively have their share of fans, the Observer says that Momsen’s portrayal of the manipulative Jenny Humphrey saved the show from an early death.

In the book series the show is based off of, Jenny is a “busty, curly-haired” social outcast “who is constantly getting trampled on.” But producers decided early on to take her character in a different direction.

“We wanted a character that in this journey of trying to fit in at school might actually succeed in her goal and even triumph over the other girls at some point,” said show writer Stephanie Savage.

So far Jenny has triumphed, briefly dethroning queen bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) in the middle of season one, and while she fell out of the in crowd, next season (which starts September 1) will bring some new drama for her.
(more…)

Catch up with Serena van der Woodsen, Chuck Bass, Nate Archibald, Blair Waldorf and the Humphrey kids before Gossip Girl returns with its second season on Sept. 1. Or, if you’ve been hearing all about a group of wealthy prep-schoolers who live scandalous lives on New York’s Upper East Side but aren’t exactly sure what everyone is talking about, you can meet the beautiful characters of the CW show in this quick video recap of the first season.

Tell us: What do you want to happen in season 2 of Gossip Girl?

After Ugly Betty cameos for Christian Siriano, Nina Garcia and Tim Gunn, another face of Project Runway — Michael Kors — is finally getting to flex his acting muscles.

The Runway judge will appear in an episode of Gossip Girl when the show returns with its second season (beginning Sept. 1). The designer recently filmed a scene, which takes place during New York’s Fashion Week, at posh downtown venue Capitale, reports Women’s Wear Daily.

“The plot line is a riot,” Kors said of the CW show. “I was glued into Gossip Girl from Day One. I think it truly is the ‘car-crash-that’s-glamorous.’”

The show, which depicts the scandalous — and very fashionable — lives of young New York socialites, may be over-the-top at times, but Kors says there’s a certain amount of truth behind its plotlines.

“Probably to the consternation of certain people on the Upper East Side, they really get it,” he said of the show’s writers. “It’s a pretty clear picture of how a lot of these kids really are.”

And thanks to upcoming appearance, he’s practically an Upper East Sider himself now.

“They called and said, ‘You are very Gossip Girl,’” he told WWD. “I thought, ‘Finally, I am a teenager.’” — Emmet Sullivan

Virginia Sherwoo/NBC; INF

Critics and parents may be seeing red over the latest round of racy Gossip Girl ads, but the show’s stars don’t mind at all.

“We just end up seeing it on a billboard somewhere,” Leighton Meester told Access Hollywood at the Teen Choice Awards Sunday. “But I think that it’s smart and it’s fine and it’s cool.”

The ad campaign, which launched last April when the show came back from hiatus, has continued into the summer with irreverent print ads featuring racy scenes from the coming season and negative critic reviews of the CW show — used to promote its drama.

“They’re very smart,” said Chace Crawford, who plays Nate Archibald on the show. “Everybody keeps saying they’re so racy, of course they’re racy, but you say they’re smart.”

Smart, maybe. Controversial, definitely. And the show has no plans to stop with its headline-grabbing antics, including some new rhetoric being introduced on the show.

“There’s a lot more [language],” Meester said. “I say Bass-hole, I say something else, but it’s all Chuck Bass-related.”

For his part, Ed Westwick, who won Favorite TV Villain at the awards for his naughty portrayal of Bass on the show, is a huge fan of the ad campaign.

“I love [the attention],” he said. I can’t get enough of it.” – Emmet Sullivan

K Mazur/TCA 2008/WireImage

: