Turns out this series isn't bad. Not great, but not bad. It mostly focuses on the uber rich high school kids in Manhatten and their warped view of things, along with the pressures put on them by their parents to mingle with the right crowd and pursue the colleges and careers their parents want for them.
After one episode, I was left uncertain as to the value of watching this series. The characters were introduced well enough and their basic situations and relations to each other were given enough attention that you have a basic grasp on things at the end of the first show. You have a lot of rich kids, the most popular rich kid returning after a year away, and a new brother and sister finding themselves entering this elite crowd although they've lived around it already for some time (hello 90210).
While this does sound like the east coast version of 90210, there's no Peach Pit here...it's all super rich type stuff.
The first episode plays out as expected demonstrating the snobbery that you'd expect to find in this setting. The storyline had enough going for it that I intended to watch another episode to see where it went. I didn't get back to it until tonight, but watched three more episodes. While all the stereotyping is there, I was pleased to see that even the evilist of rich bastards did some good things and were made a little more interesting in the show.
If you're in the mood for something about as deep as 90210 was back in the day, Gossip Girl is worth a look, but watch more than one episode. It's hard to squeeze enough character development into the opener to see more than one side to the characters to begin with. The pleasant surprise is that you'll find they have more than one as the series progresses.
If you're looking for something to break up the deep thought Losts and Heroes type shows, this might be one to check out.
Its target audience seems to be 16-24 females which is perfect for me.
