#8 - ‘Gossip Girl’: The limits of just how far a high school teen show could go were pushed when The CW’s ‘Gossip Girl’ debuted in 2007. Critics yelled, ‘Every parent’s nightmare,’ (which the show skillfully used on its billboards), but fans – young and old – religiously flock to the series each week to follow the racy drama of NYC’s elite Upper East Side prep circle.