LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. — Ed Westwick lowers his head, narrows his eyes and curls his mouth into his signature Chuck Bass snarl. Hovering at the edge of the "Gossip Girl" schoolyard set wearing one of the dandy's trademark candy-colored garments (this one's a traffic-cone orange trench coat), Westwick hops up and down, shaking out his arms like a boxer about to enter the ring.

His foes? Two of TV's most, well, gossiped-about girls, Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), the lead characters on the modestly rated but wildly buzzed- and blogged-about CW teen drama that's arguably permeating pop culture in a way not seen since "The OC."

Smoothing down his sideburns, Westwick completes his Chuck transformation, striding across the ersatz courtyard in front of the rolling cameras and sidling up to Serena on a bench.

"It's been awhile since I saw the old Serena," he growls into her ear.

"Gossip's" gaggles of fans are thinking the same thing. Tonight at 7, Serena, Blake, Chuck and the rest of the preternaturally groomed gang of private high schoolers are back on the Upper East Side to continue the cavorting begun before the writers' strike. Shenanigans then included breaking into the school pool for a martinis-and-bikinis party; sleeping with a boyfriend — and his best friend — as Blair did; and taking the inevitable pregnancy test. All of which, of course, "everyone does," jokes Meester, especially within the same week. At the end of the last episode, Blair's reputation is in ruins, and Nate, her ex, is adrift, having lost both his girlfriend and his best friend, Chuck.

Expect ratcheted-up raciness in the final five episodes of Season 1, cast members say. "These scripts have been really, really juicy and exciting," Lively, 20, says. For one, Serena's most formidable frenemy, Georgina Sparks (ex-"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Michelle Trachtenberg), returns to reveal why the blond heroine was mysteriously whisked away to boarding school, only to come back in time for the start of the series. Georgina's claws-out presence promises to shake the stability of Serena's uptown girl-Brooklyn boy romance with Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley). Another jolt: One character is coming out as gay, though no one will reveal whom.

And it will all be chronicled via the must-read blog of the anonymous Gossip Girl (voiced by Kristen Bell).

Every episode will elicit an "OMG!," Lively says, "at least three times." They're brimming with "a lot of 'Oh-my-goodness-gracious!' moments. That's one part of the advertising that's accurate."

"Our show has come in with a bang, and now they wish it will come back with a bang," says Lively, immediately aware of the unintended prurient pun.

In fact, "Gossip" isn't quite the broadcast bang: The first 13 episodes averaged only 2.5 million viewers per episode. But sales on iTunes have been robust, regularly spiking to the top-selling slot. And among network shows, the show ranks No. 9 among that coveted demographic — female teens. Among total teens, it reaches No. 30, tied with "Dancing With the Stars." "Gossip's" impact on the broader culture, from music to fashion, is fierce, drawing comparisons to the marks that "Sex and the City" and "The OC" made. Because it's set and filmed in New York, it's introducing a new generation to the city "Sex" glamorized a decade ago. And it's key to the struggling CW network's future.

"It would be great to get 10 million people to watch the show, but maybe that's not in the cards," says "Gossip Girl" and "OC" creator Josh Schwartz. "What's even more important to us is it's a show that people who do watch are passionate about," the kind that drives hundreds of girls — and their moms — to gawk at Chuck and Nate having a beat-down on an Upper East Side location shoot.

Still, building buzz among the lip-glossed legions is "hard and it's rare, and that audience moves on you," Schwartz says. And an unintended three-month hiatus poses a potential challenge. "Creatively, it's always great to take a break and recharge your batteries and dive back in again," Schwartz says of the strike, but whether last fall's momentum can be maintained remains to be seen.

"Even in the course of 'The OC,' I felt I had them, and then some of them drifted off. You need to put something down that's seductive and sophisticated and not talking to down to them — and hope that the story line you're presenting is compelling."