After watching last week’s Gossip Girl and its end-of-episode revelation, I wondered if the series had already reached its shark-jumping moment. And it turns out I wasn’t the only one to react that way.

Previously, we thought Serena’s realized that she didn’t like the person she was when she slept with Nate, her best friend’s boyfriend… but now that’s been overshadowed by a darker and more dramatic turning point — a turning point that completely overshadows Serena’s tryst with Nate. For her to want to become a different person because she found betraying Blair too easy helped made the Blair/Serena friendship one of the more complicated female relationships on television (usually on TV it’s finding the right man who motivates a bad girl to reform her wicked ways, until recently the right man was the test of her reformation, not her motivation).

And, more importantly, throwing all that depth out won’t mean much more than a cheap shock:

…the whole thing [will be] forgotten a few weeks later when so-and-so sleeps with the hot history teacher. It’s unrealistic, it’s an obvious ratings ploy, and it’s upsetting to dedicated viewers like myself

Gossip Girl was for a while the best show I never expected to totally fall for. It was the kind of show I used to totally love — something that looks like utter trash on the surface but reveals surprising amounts of depth. Lately, it’s just been trash that forgot it had hidden depths.

It does fix one of the least inspired parts of Degrassi — even better there no Emma. Too bad Manny still has those awful bangs, tho.

And if only we could get that special guest star back.

Here’s some news that leaves me very, very happy — Breaking Bad gets a second season.

Breaking Bad, AMC’s dramedy about an Albuquerque chemistry teacher who starts dealing in meth after learning he has cancer, was one of those shows that had me wary with the concept — the idea of a drama dealing with a seemingly-terminal illness sounded too heavy to be enjoyable, while crystal meth didn’t sound like a drug that really opened itself to wacky hijinx but the show gets the balance perfect. A good amount of that can be credited to lead Bryan Cranston who was underappreciated by critics on Malcolm in the Middle — he struck a delicate balance of comedy and drama, there, too — but Breaking Bad overall shows an impressive awareness of how to balance out each scene so that the comedy doesn’t become too irreverent and the drama doesn’t become too grim. Breaking Bad’s first season was an emotionally powerful series, one that was always compelling and thought-provoking.

Let’s hope they keep that up in the second season.

Uhm, yeah. So the Fox Reality Channel, which is only worth watching when Elvira is on, has canceled its Reality Remix series for a different show dedicated to recapping reality TV, one that’ll be “taking a cynical look at the most out-of-control, out-of-the-box, out-of-their-mind minutes of reality TV, and celebrating them in all their glory.”

Uhm, yeah. “Cynical.” “Fox.” and “Reality.” together at last… because Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire, The Moment of Truth and the ickiest show I’ve heard of in ages weren’t the most cynical views of life to be brought to television already. I hate to imagine what that show would be like if it lived up to that description.

For me, Monday night’s TV is all about Gossip Girl and the gay character who’s promised to be revealed tonight. To be honest, the luster on GG has faded a bit for me since its return. Serena remains an interesting character, but Blair has devolved into a generic soap opera bitch queen and other interesting characters have gotten less screen time for the totally “been there” Jenny vs. Blair storyline. I’ve come to think of Michelle Trachtenberg as a harbinger of doom for a TV show — I find her a good actress but the downturn in quality seen on The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Buffy soon after her arrival has trained me to wince at the sight of her name.

So, amid this downturn, will Gossip Girl’s gay guy be a character as interesting as in the glory days of Gossip Girl? There’s reason to be hopeful. Trachtenberg’s character, Georgina, showed a glimmer of being more than a generic bad girl character and some of GG’s current downturn can be blamed on an increased focus on Jenny (who’s still boring, but less so) and on Blair’s new clique — so maybe the GG producers are focused on developing characters not as well established, including the character getting outed to the audience tonight.

I guess we’ll see tonight.

The John Barrowman fans who can enjoy a total cheesefest might want to set their DVRs for the Sci-Fi channel tomorrow morning when the so bad its good Shark Attack 3: Magaladoon airs. Barrowman plays a security diver who has to deal with a prehistoric giant shark terrorizing a Mexican resort. From what little I’ve seen, this one is full of special effects so bad and cheesy one can only laugh (and laugh and laugh) in reaction.

Alright, so I’m now pretty excited over the new 90210 spin-off/sequel becauseJessica Walter will be in it but I now I’m also building excitement over Good Behavior, Thomas’ adaptation of a New Zealand series about a criminal family who tries to amend their ways. The cast already has Mae Whitman in it (a second bit of Arrested Development casting — I wonder if we can hope for another AD vet to show up on Cupid) but the family’s matriarch might be played by Catherine O’Hara. Catherine. O’Hara.

In other 90210 bits, the series added Shenae Grimes to its cast who, if memory serves correctly, was the conservative Christian activist student at Degrassi. While I think Grimes got to show some amazing acting chops (no thanks to her wooden leading guy) I have to admit to some surprise it’s not a better known Degrassi cast member to get a breakout role first like Deanna Casaluce (Alex), Lauren Colins (who, admittedly, is busy playing Nicole Sullivan’s sister on some Lifetime show) or Adamo Ruggiero.

Dirt’s Ryan Eggold also joined the cast as the school’s hot young teacher — I liked Eggold on Dirt so he’s a promising addition to the cast but what does this say about his Dirt role? I missed the season finale (stupid Comcast DVR) so was he written out? Does this suggest that he doesn’t expect Dirt to get a third season and feel free to commit to another series?

So that list of 6 Sci-Fi TV Show Concepts You Didn’t See wraps up with a mention of ,em>The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang a Saturday morning adaptation of the then-popular Happy Days. The series focused on the gang meeting a time traveler named Cookie, who takes the guys for a quick travel through time, only to bust the control mechanism (or something like that) and so they have to randomly jump through time, have an adventure while the machine recharges (or something) and hope the next random jump takes them back to the 1950s.

Of course, I was too young to realize that the sitcom and this animated show followed different continuities. I spent my remaining Happy Days watching days looking for them to get around to introducing Cookie on the main show. She seemed more interesting than any of the guys. When Linda Purl first appeared in the show credits, I wondered if she would be playing Cookie.

I’ve lost a lot of my love for Boston Legal of late, in some ways it’s still a great show in other ways it’s David E. Kelley indulging in his excesses to a new level of annoying.

However, the show does bring some great performers who haven’t been on TV for too long. Recently the show gave us a very welcome return of Alison LaPlaca and tonight Christine Ebersole makes an appearance as… well, does it matter? One of the few things Boston Legal is really good at is giving guest stars the caliber of LaPlaca, Ebersole and (another great recent guest) Stephen Root material that lives up to their talents and aside from a brief appearance on The Big Gay Sketch Show (in a Grey Gardens/Extreme Makeover: Home Edition mash-up parody) it’s been too long since Ebersole has been on my TV.

Sigh, it’s too bad that character is better associated with Ebersole than Kit Cavanaugh, eh?

Animal Planet says they’ll be focusing less on animals and more about how people feel about animals. I think they should do the reality series I’ve been suggesting for years. Basically, it’d be The Real World (the classic people-with-goals edition) except that the cast spends the days going to a zoo where they learn how to care for some beloved animal. You have drama, you have cute animals… it sounds like a winning formula. Plus you have the veneer of educational programming to make reality TV haters feel like its okay to watch. Season one could be penguins, season two could be about koakas… and maybe by then the show will be a big enough hit that a zoo with a panda will let people in training.

Because I’ve got an excuse to post it, here’s a show about a human interacting with cute animals: