Hilary Duff submitted a pilot episode that got turned down this season; that allowed “Gossip Girl”(8 p.m. Central Mondays on The CW) to cast her for — as every report on the subject says — “several episodes” as starlet-turned-student Olivia Burke. Basically, she’s a recurring character whose amount of recurrence is to be determined.
Here’s an idea: Since Duff wants to get back into TV anyway, why not make her a “Gossip Girl” regular? Entertainment Weekly knocked Olivia and Dan (Penn Badgley) as being a boring couple, but I disagree completely. Duff has breathed a new kind of life into the show, and if she were to depart, it would be noticed.
Unlike Michelle Trachtenberg’s Georgina, who exists to shake things up, Duff’s Olivia isn’t a pop-in-every-now-and-then character. She feels like a regular. This is because “Gossip Girl” had a slot to fill in the “non-manipulative normal person” category. It was originally occupied by the Humphreys, but we all saw what happened to Jenny, and while Rufus and Dan are good people, they tend to approach the machinations around them with a bemused policy of non-interference. Then Vanessa was the selfless outsider, but in order to get a coveted spot as NYU’s freshman toast-giver, she went toe to toe with Blair last week.
So now that nice, unselfish Upper East Outsider position belongs to Olivia, a Hollywood actress who wants to go to school like a normal girl (some say the character is based on “Harry Potter’s” Emma Watson). Olivia immediately falls for Dan because of his normalness. There’s no drama with her: Dan doesn’t have to worry about acting a certain way or saying the right thing, because she’s laid back about their growing relationship. It’s almost as if Hollywood sheltered Olivia from the veneer of rudeness that all the other “Gossip” girls learned.
Basically, Olivia is the girl you’d want to take home to meet the parents, as Dan does in the latest episode. You can be proud to walk into a room with her, but you can also have a conversation with her. (And Duff is completely adorable, as always. She has a natural screen presence you can’t turn away from, and I think she’s going to keep improving as an actress.)
“Gossip Girl” can’t be all about Serena and her bad-boy boyfriends, Chuck and Blair and their inability to be decent human beings, and whatever’s going on with Rufus and Lily (it’s the longest-running relationship on the show, but also, let’s face it, kind of dull).
With Olivia and Dan, there’s a real spark there, and “Gossip Girl” should sign up Duff as a regular so we can see how the writers handle a relationship not based on manipulations and intrigue. The show needs one of those, if only as a foil for everyone else.
What did you think of Duff’s first couple episodes of “Gossip Girl?” Do you find Olivia and Dan boring or refreshing?
(On another topic, happy 100th post to John’s blog. It’s been a fun ride so far, and I’m willing to keep going if you are.)
