Oh, my God! The rumours are true! The new American teen drama Gossip Girl is brittle, bitchy and brilliant. Set among a clique of privileged Upper East Side schoolkids, it’s better dressed than The OC, 10 times raunchier than One Tree Hill and 1,000 times glossier than Skins. Gossip Girl is a shameless fest of beautiful people and shallow emotion, mixed with drugs, booze, sex, betrayal and clothes. Stuff Cranford. Gossip Girl is what I watch TV for.

In America, the show has been a hit, not just with teens, but with the Sex and the City demographic – thirtysomething women like me, who shouldn’t really be interested in the trials and tribulations of spoilt 16-year-olds. The truth is, my friends and I are all addicted to American teen TV. We loved Beverly Hills 90210, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, and discuss the twists and turns of America’s Next Top Model at length. Gossip Girl is the ultimate example of the teen genre. But I like it so much that I wonder if its creator, Josh Schwartz, the man behind The OC (which I also loved), devised it with the SATC demographic in mind – a drama about kids who have grown up too fast, aimed at grown-ups who still want to behave like kids.

Set in an impossibly wealthy, sophisticated world, Gossip Girl is a utopia of consumption, a televised fashion magazine full of the latest clothes, social-climbing techniques, buzz words and new faces (a perfect antidote to all that reality TV). On one level, it provides a hit of pure escapism, but its premise also plays up the similarities between rich, spoilt teens with no responsibilities and self-obsessed thirtysomethings, also with no responsibilities. You watch it and think, those kids are like me, but with better skin.

For a start, the cast all look as if they are in their late twenties. Then they act like it, too – how many 17-year-old boys do you know who hire prostitutes to entertain their mates at a house party, as bad boy Chuck Bass does? How many schoolgirls use party planners to stage-manage a sleepover, as the spoilt Blair Waldorf does?

Like Skins, which also reaches out beyond the teen audience, Gossip Girl doesn’t have the patronising, preachy morality that informs many of the issues in teen dramas. Binge-drinking, drug-taking and sex just happen. Sometimes, there are consequences. Sometimes, there aren’t. And, unlike The OC, say, the characters in Gossip Girl aren’t trying to be better people. Even the adults are morally void or terribly vulnerable, and just as dysfunctional as their kids.

The irony is that watching teenagers behave like neurotic thirtysomethings is now far more palatable than watching thirtysomethings behave like neurotic thirtysomethings (more Cold Feet, anyone?). That way, their tragedies and dramas can be enjoyed as entertainment. The buzz in Hollywood is of a revival of the original teen drama, Beverly Hills 90210. Set your DVD recorder now.

Gossip Girl starts on Thursday on ITV at 10pm

SERENA

Introducing the queen bee: the undisputed leader of the pack, the object of everyone’s affection and your style icon for this year.Admired by all the lower-ranking richkids at her Manhattanprep school, she’s the school celebrity – each thrown-together outfit and casually placed accessory is photographed, scrutinised and imitated. The girls want to be her and the boys want to shag her – think Sienna Miller in her glory days. Deal with hair envy by reminding yourself about her drink problem and messed-up family.

NATE

The clear frontrunner for heart-throb of the show, Nate sets pulse rates soaring with his preppy side parting and expensive tailoring. Just don’t expect him to charm you with his wit or philosophical musings. As he struggles to cope with the expectations of his fragile girlfriend, Blair, and the demands of his outrageously wealthy father, Nate’s Upper East Side crown slips scandalously – think hookers and hangovers. Fast turning into a real-life It boy, he’s the latest hottie on the Hollywood block.

BLAIR

Immaculately decked out in Hermès and Prada, she’s the Park Avenue princess falling apart at the seams. Never knowingly undergroomed, Blair is the poster girl for New York polish. Along with on/off BF Serena, she controls the social hub of the school: if your name’s not on her list, you’re not coming in. But Blair’s relationship with her long-term boyfriend, Nate, is on the rocks, and heartache and bitterness threaten to knock her off the princess perch. Battling self-doubt is not such a hot look.

CHUCK

The ruthless bad boy with a fat chequebook and cheekbones to cut glass, Chuck is a master of meddling and manipulation, and by far the most corrupt of all these overgrown teenagers, thanks to years of parental neglect. Chuck and his best friend, Nate, are a delinquent double act that has the pick of the girls. With sharp retro styling, ruffle-worthy hair and a venomous tongue, he will undress you with his eyes, then run off with your sister. Chuck is on a fast track to destruction – but in a limo, of course.

JENNY

Poor Jenny, she’s the cute little girl playing dress-up. Just 14 years old, with her mother out of the picture and an ageing rock-star dad, she looks to the high-school fashionistas for friendship and approval. She’s handy with a sewing machine – she can rustle up a Marc Jacobs knock-off in record time – but her modest upbringing and wide-eyed innocence mean she is totally unprepared for the salacious drama and risky encounters the in crowd involves her in. For her, going to school is like being thrown to the lions.

DAN

Older brother to Jenny, Dan is the awkward, geeky kid on a scholarship from the wrong side of the tracks. But this is the telly, so he’s still perfectly chiselled and well dressed: the East Coast version of The OC’s Seth Cohen, but with much bigger muscles. What with playing protective older brother and falling for goddess Serena, this boy has a lot on his plate. He’s not part of the in gang as he doesn’t live on Fifth Avenue. Look to him for insightful one-liners and self-deprecating wit – he’s about the only one you might find reading a book.

Joanna McGarry

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