Hey Upper East Siders! Have you heard the news? Gossip Girl is being rebooted, and I am here to spill all the information to help you decide whether you should watch it or not!
Stay tuned for details about the cast, the plot, and my personal thoughts. Xoxo.
It's official- the TV show Gossip Girl is being rebooted on HBO Max.
Viewers can expect the reboot to appear on HBO Max some time in 2021. This reboot has completely new actors, characters, and storylines, so be ready for some new drama. Gossip Girl, which originally aired from 2007 to 2012 on The CW Network, featured the drama of New York's teenage socialites from the eyes of Gossip Girl who, *spoiler alert* ended up being Brooklyn's Dan Humphrey.
The show, filled with dramatic twists and turns, was, and remains, a huge hit.
There will be some updates to the technology used by Gossip Girl and other characters, more specifically a larger role played by social media. Joshua Safran, executive producer of the original Gossip Girl, told The Hollywood Reporter, “So how has this world changed, how has social media and its effect changed? All of those things allow us to look at the world 12 years on as opposed to just redoing the story. None of us are interested in redoing a story.”
Clearly, viewers should not expect a continuation of the original Gossip Girl, but a more modernized, relevant show.
HBO has been keeping fans updated from their official Gossip Girl Instagram account. The first post we received from the Gossip Girl Instagram was posted on November 21st.
The post shows many characters of the new cast including actors Jordan Alexander and Thomas Doherty, along with a slide that says “You know, it's who's on the inside that counts.”
The next post we saw from Gossip Girl's Instagram, posted on November 25, was even more revealing.
It showed a video of some cast members in the courtyard at Constance Billard and St. Jude's, two fictional schools where the original show took place. The cast members featured in this post include Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Savannah Smith, Zión Moreno, and Eli Brown.
From this, we received confirmation that the show will take place at the original Gossip Girl schools.
The third post was possibly the most iconic one yet, with all the cast members sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum. If you remember anything about the original Gossip Girl, it is probably that the Met's stairs are where Blair and Serena, the two main characters, always sat.
This post, however, received the most backlash out of all three posts. Fans of the original show were critiquing the reboot saying, “The reboot will never be as good as the original” and “No one asked for this.”
After these three posts, fans were surprised on New Year's Day, when each of the main characters were featured in an individual post announcing their name and a word to describe them.
The characters announced are as follows: Jordan Alexander playing Julien Calloway, Savannah Smith playing Monet de Haan, Zion Moreno playing Luna La, Thomas Doherty playing Max Wolfe, Emily Alyn Lind playing Audrey Hope, Tavi Gevinson playing Kate Keller, Eli Brown playing Otto “Obie” Bergmann IV, Evan Mock playing Akeno “Aki” Menzies, and Whitney Peak playing Zoya Lott.
The word given to describe them, respectively, is influence, power, style, freedom, grace, ambition, privilege, innocence, and perspective. Below is the picture of Emily Alyn Lind's picture, aka Audrey Hope, who is rumored to play character similar to Serena van der Woodsen.
My Thoughts
Based on what has been released thus far, I am expecting and looking forward to a completely different show than the original Gossip Girl.
The problem is that most fans are not as enthusiastic. The average fan of the original Gossip Girl fell in love with the characters, and there is no way HBO can replicate another Serena van der Woodsen or Chuck Bass. I believe that no matter how good this show is, fans will always look at it as a Gossip Girl wannabe.
I am excited, however, for the diversity in the new cast.
From what it looks like, the reboot will have more diversity, which always adds depth to a show. I will admit though that I am having trouble with the fact that Emily Alyn Lind, Jamie Kelly from Dear Dumb Diary, will be playing the Serena character. I grew up watching Dear Dumb Diary, so it is hard to picture Lind all grown up as a completely different character.
So, am I excited for this show? Yes. I am excited for more of the New York socialite drama we all grew to love in the original Gossip Girl.
However, am I expecting to love this show as much? No. I am fairly confident that this show will never be better than the original, but I am trying to keep an open mind.
