Top 10: The Best in TV, the Web, Books and Beyond

Rolling Stone's new guide to the best in pop culture: "Gossip Girl," "Grand Theft Auto IV," "Miley Cyrus" and more

Posted May 15, 2008 12:00 AM

1. Gossip Girl: The Biggest Show No One Is Watching

When we commute to work, we see Blake Lively plastered to the side of the bus, enraptured by that "bosom kiss" the Parents Television Council is protesting. When we read TMZ, Chace Crawford is always there showmancing the latest country singer or boy-band has-been. And now we can't even go see our beloved Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants sequel without a van der Woodsen getting all up in our grill? For a show that regularly attracts fewer viewers than TBS' House of Payne, Gossip Girl has certainly captured the public imagination. "These kids live in their own self-created fishbowl with the Gossip Girl blogging about them," says the show's executive producer, Josh Schwartz. "And that speaks to how celebrity gossip and Internet culture affects our lives." So Blair and Serena can bring on every eating disorder and pregnancy scare in the book — it won't tear us away from the real drama: Are Lively and Penn Badgley really dating? Are Leighton Meester and Lively catfighting? WTF is going on with Crawford's hair? And is this sucker really going to change television, or is it just the next O.C.?

2. Jim and Pam — Make It Stop!

Shared giggles, harmonizing in the car, Jim overusing that cocked-eyebrow expression — it all means trouble for The Office. You don't take the couple that everyone wants to see together and make them happy while the show's still hot! You wait until it's tanking! And now they're getting engaged? Even New York and Taylor Made waited longer.

3. Taking a "Grand Theft Auto Day"

Cough, cough. We're feeling a little under the weather, but it's nothing that can't be cured by some echinacea and a day off work — say, after April 29th, when the new, New York-themed, mind-blowingly photo-realistic Grand Theft Auto IV comes out? Did we mention our grandmother will probably die around this time next week?

4. Nature's Smackdown

Ever come home after a long, hard day and think, "If only I could unwind by watching a buffalo fight a crocodile and a pride of lions at the same time"? Now's your chance. On May 11th, National Geographic airs Caught on Safari: Battle at Kruger, the berserker wildlife battle taped by stunned tourists and viewed 29 million times online. Bloody awesome!

5. Satan's Coffee-Table Book

We all know what coffee-table books are for: scaring the crap out of houseguests! That's why we love True Norwegian Black Metal, photographer Peter Beste's thrillingly macabre salute to the odd culture of Norse-country headbangers. You have to love any book that delivers photos of onstage crucifixions, decapitated sheep and rivers of blood juxtaposed with serene shots of quaint fishing villages. TNBM may be the strangest travel porn we've seen — it makes us want to fly to Norway, rent a rowboat and bite the head off a bat.

6. Ira Glass: NPR's Zac Efron

Your life coach fell for his slightly nasal voice years ago. But ever since Ira Glass put his face on Showtime, you'd think he was in High School Musical. As This American Life's new season debuts, the groupies are plastering his photo on their walls and forming Facebook groups like "Ira Glass Can Have Me Any Way He Wants." There's hope for you yet, Carl Kasell.

7. Miley Cyrus Corruption Watch

Man, it's tough to be a 15-year-old superstar — all you want to do is kick back, take suggestive photos with a sketchy guy, and show your cool new lingerie to the camera, and all of a sudden Bill O'Reilly's breathing up your behind. Jeez. At least she's not playing "hide the loofah" with interns.

8. Cloverfield Backlash Reversed

When J.J. Abrams' monster epic first hit theaters, it couldn't have lived up to the teasers our best friend leaked on her blog. (Thanks, Mom!) But a second viewing on DVD proves it's better than we thought, especially since there are enough Easter eggs and alternate endings to keep you cooking up theories until the sequel comes out — or until you get a life.

9. 9/11 Conspiracy — Solved

We still have questions about 9/11 — like, if it was orchestrated by Dick Cheney as part of an oil conspiracy, would the plot have made a good comedy? Page 191 of our own Matt Taibbi's The Great Derangement imagines the answer as a hilarious chat between Cheney and his cronies. His most astute point: "Without oil, we're like Bangladesh with fat people."

10. War of the Roses

We had this YouTube clip e-mailed to us 38 times too: "Charlie Rose by Samuel Beckett," a meta-interview in which the interrogator quirkily queries himself in the style of the absurdist playwright. (Best moment: Rose blankly repeating, "Google . . . Google . . . Google.") Rose says he loves it: "Someone told me, 'Find out who did that, and hire him.' "