Gossip Girl

The iconic late ‘00s teen drama is back for a Gen Z revival. For the updated 2021 edition, the cast is diverse in race and sexual orientation, issues of power and privilege are at the forefront of characters’ minds in a way they weren’t in the original, and the mysterious Gossip Girl stirs up drama through an anonymous Instagram account instead of a blog. But for all the ways it’s superficially different, at its core it’s still a glossy and provocative soap opera about outrageously precocious teenagers behaving badly. You just might find yourself getting sucked into their lives of excess in spite of yourself, no matter how far from high school or the Upper East Side you might be – or even if hearing Kristen Bell’s voice over as Gossip Girl again doesn’t give you goosebumps of nostalgia.