Gossip Girl, a teen drama, premiered on September 19, 2007 in the United States on The CW Television Network. Gossip Girl is based on the young-adult book series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar, and was developed for television by The O.C. creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. The series follows the lives of young, wealthy socialites residing in Upper East Side, Manhattan, and is narrated by an unseen and seemingly omniscient character, "Gossip Girl", whose blog is widely read among the characters.

After the first three episodes were aired, the series received a full season order of twenty-two episodes from The CW. Due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, only thirteen episodes were produced. Once the strike ended, The CW announced five more episodes to be produced and aired in April and May 2008. Despite earning low ratings during the first part of the first season, it was announced in March 2008 that the series was renewed for a second season since it "hits a bulls-eye with The CW's target demographic of females 18 to 34" and the episodes are among the most downloaded on iTunes. When the series began to air again in April, however, The CW stopped offering online streaming on their website in an apparent effort to boost ratings; though in July 2008 The CW decided to put back the online streaming of the show's episodes in their website again. The DVD of the first season was released on August 18, 2008 for Region 2 and a day later for Region 1.

Currently on its second season, the series has aired twenty-three episodes as of September 29, 2008.

Series overview

Season		Episodes	Originally aired	DVD region 1 release	Season premiere	Season finale	Avg. U.S. viewers (m)
	1	18	2007–2008	August 19, 2008	September 19, 2007	May 19, 2008	2.60
	2	24	2008–2009	TBD	September 1, 2008	2009	3.40

Season 1: 2007–2008

The first season premiered on September 18, 2007 on CTV and September 19, 2007 airing at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (7:00 p.m. Central) on The CW, the original broadcast network. Repeats were aired Sundays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (7:00 p.m. Central) before they were moved to their current time slot at 6:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Central) by the first season's third episode.

The pilot episode was the first television pilot of the fall 2007 season to be picked up by its network. It received mediocre ratings overall, but performed well in key demographics and is one of the most buzzed-about new shows on the Internet. Its digital video recorder ratings were high, increasing the shows profitability. The Deseret News noted that pilot presented Gossip Girl as milder than a lot of what is shown on MTV, but still warned parents of several scenes in the pilot.

After the last episode produced before the writers' strike was aired, The CW moved the series to Monday starting on January 28, with repeats of the first season until the first post-strike episode was aired, after which it continued to be aired on Monday nights.

Episode	Title	Director(s)	Writer(s)	Original airdate	Total U.S. viewers (m)

Season 2: 2008–2009

The second season began to air on September 1, 2008 on its previous Monday time slot after the series' return from the writers' strike. A total of twenty-four episodes were ordered by The CW. The CW started the television season at the end of the Northern Hemisphere summer instead of the more conventional start in the fall along with other larger TV networks.

Episode	Title	Director(s)	Writer(s)	Original airdate	Total U.S. viewers (m)

Specials

Episode #	Title	Original airdate

Notes

References