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We couldn't avert our gaze once the series premiere of Gossip Girl began on ANTM's stiletto heels: we'd been warned that it was Sex and the City for the teenage set, but at least S&TC had a few jokes here and there. We sat through what seemed like three hours of Upper East Side angst, a poor, rich man's version of every John Hughes plot line (Serena is Lea Thompson from Some Kind of Wonderful and Dan is Eric Stoltz; Chuck is James Spader from Pretty in Pink, Nate is Andrew McCarthy, and Taylor is Molly Ringwald; and Blair is the quintessential rich bitch from both movies). We were jealous of the cinematic, champagne-drenched sex scene wherein Nate cashed in his V-card, disappointed in the ingenue's inability to extricate herself from the lure of the smarmy older date-raper (as if she were a 'tween version of Demi Moore in St. Elmo's Fire), and unconvinced by the boyfriend's refusal to pop his teddy-wearing girlfriend's cherry. Basically, the show seemed to shoot its whole wad prematurely in one episode (the dorky but secretly cool shy guy scores the cool chick in the pilot episode?!) leaving us to wonder, Could 90210 have been this bad, too?

But wait: it didn't end at ten o'clock! The "top story" on the local NYC CW news was a behind-the-scenes bit on Gossip Girl, followed by the important "news" of Alicia Silverstone getting naked for a cause: "Stay tuned for the Apocalypse!" Of course, our Tivo's all cued up for next Wednesday...