25 shows to watch if you like Riverdale
By Sundi Rose
Gossip Girl
Both airing on The CW, Gossip Girl lends its teen drama staples to Riverdale. It has loads of beautiful teenagers,played by 20-somethings, running around acting like they own the world.
The premise: An Upper East Side clique, led by Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, gets into all sorts of implausible scenarios, while their clueless parents treat them like adults.
Serena returns home to this posh little corner of Manhattan after leaving disgraced by a scandal. Her best friend, Blair, has been holding court as resident mean girl and Queen Bee since Serena left. Now that they’re back together, they go through a series of handsome men with insane abs, money issues, scandals and betrayals. Think Dynasty if it was about snobby teenagers and their obnoxious drama.
Why you’ll like it: Riverdale borrows heavily from Gossip Girl’s themes of identity, loyalty, class and female friendships. Although not as gritty as Riverdale, it has the teeth to be a traditional drama, but all the camp to contend as full-fledged melodrama.
Gossip Girl, like so many other teen dramas from which Riverdale draws, relies almost exclusively on the point of view of its “teenagers.” Of course, the age-inappropriate casting makes all the sex and violence slightly more palatable, but it’s solely about the bad behavior (and sometimes the valor, but not as often) of high school students. It’s clever and just unrelatable enough to be completely watchable.
Where to find it: You can watch all six juicy, sexy seasons on Netflix. It’s definitely worth the time.