Put down your remotes, this is the show of the fall season. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s another Josh Schwartz/Stephanie Savage effort.

Gossip Girl is The OC for the East coast. From here on its New York not Newport that’s in. The similarities are there of course: cast of impossibly rich pretty people, troubled social queen, spoilt best friend, kid from the wrong side of town, cool parents with a lot of shared history…. multiply that by six and that’s Gossip Girl. Move over Carrie Bradshaw, it’s the Upper East side teens who make us heart NY now. Move over Julie Cooper, we’ve got Blair Waldorf, Chuck Bass, and all the mom’s and dad’s of the Upper East Side to hate now. Dan is a smarter, more adorable Ryan and Seth , Serena is a more interesting Marissa. Nate is everything Luke should have been.

Gossip Girl is breathtaking with a Manhattenite’s pace. It’s everything I fell for in The OC for back in the day, but on crack. Schwartz and Savage have taken the melodrama of a teen novel series and molded it to fit their winning formula. Great music, grand locations. There are character twists all over the place; evil one minute, vulnerable the next; shallow one episode, complicated in another. Keep the audience guessing, that’s sort of The OC way, but done better. Is it the cold snap of the east coast that gives it an edge? The harsh light of a chilly day, away from the warm Californian sunshine? But in true OC tradition, the thanksgiving episode was awesome.

The question is, is Gossip Girl going to do an OC and burn through all it’s bright ideas in one lightspeed season? The inconvenient writer’s strike will hold them back a bit at the least. Have Schwartz and co learned their lesson? That’s one secret they’ll never tell. You know you’ll love it. XOXO