Monday Musings- Guest Gossip Girls

House
Lets start with a quote from Alan Sepinwall's review of the episode.

He said, about the two hour season premier that "rather than revitalizing my interest in the show in general, it's elevated my interest in House himself and made the other characters and the medical mysteries feel even more superfluous than before."

I agree whole heartedly with Mr. Sepinwall's comments. I was unbelievably pumped for this season of House after the premier saga that took place at the mental institution. It was all House, all the time. Now that we are back in the flow of what the show has always been, I've lost all excitement. Whoah, another crazy medical story that they're going to try and figure out! It's getting old for me. And the other characters? My God, Foreman is terrible. I won't even be sad to see Cameron leave. And I'm sure Chase will turn back into the lame excuse for a character he was as a regular pretty soon. My expectations have dropped dramatically in the last two episodes.

Gossip Girl
For me, this week's ep was just an exclamation point on how good the start to this, the third season has been. It seems that, behind what I assume is Josh Schwartz's mind, the show has transitioned very nicely from high school to college (or not college). I enjoyed the hiccups everyone was having as they left high school and had to learn to deal with the troubles of college in NYC, or not wanting to leave as is the case with Serena.

Quick notes on those not in the main storyline...Jenny was actually tolerable in the ep, as her teaming with Chuck brought her closer to his personality. The little that Nate was in this week's ep (which is a travesty) was fantastic. He's so believable as a character. As he sits at the table waiting for Dan to ask out the extremely famous movie star, played by Hilary Duff, he is beside himself at how ridiculous it is that Dan has no idea who she is. Then once Dan leaves with her, he gives the fist pump and in a sigh of relief exclaims, "oh my God." This dude is real sweet. And then we have Serena, who was TERRIBLE as always.

My biggest knock on this show used to be that I didn't like many of the characters, especially the girls. To start this season they have packed a punch, bringing back Georgina, bringing in Joanna Garcia as Bree Buckley and now Hilary Duff as Olivia Burke. Olivia's character was fantastic. No matter how many shows or movies I see it in, the story line of a famous person pretending to not be famous, is great every single time. It's completely played at this point, but I still enjoy it. Here's what makes this an acceptable plot...If I were to see Kristen what's her name from the Twilight movies on the street, I would have absolutely no way of recognizing her. I don't know how long Duff is staying on, but I'm hoping for it to be a while, 'cause she was great.