A 'Gossip Girl' Reboot Might Happen, Because We Need Blair Waldorf Now More Than Ever
The Gossip Girl character Dan Humphrey was basically resurrected in the Lifetime/Netflix series You, but if we needed any of the teen drama's Upper East Siders to return in full force in 2019, Dan's at the bottom of our list. Instead, Leighton Meester's fashionable, strong-willed Blair Waldorf is the character revival we could benefit from, and while we may never see Blair onscreen again, we could soon meet her teenage spirit animal. A Gossip Girl reboot might happen, so here's hoping that a potential new group of characters can manage without Dan's creepy tendencies.
During the Television Critics Association's winter press tour, CW president Mark Pedowitz hinted that the network could revisit the idea of Gossip Girl nearly seven years after the original series ended in 2012. When reporters asked him about the possibility, Pedowitz said:
There’s a discussion, but I don’t know if we’re there yet. I don’t know what it would be. A lot is up to Warner Bros. and [exec producers] Josh [Schwartz] and Steph[anie Savage], ’cause you don’t want to do anything without them.
Of course, The CW is no stranger to rebooting beloved dramas with slightly tweaked premises. It currently airs reboots of Charmed, Dynasty, and Roswell, so if there's any network that could try to greet viewers with "XOXO" again, The CW is a seamless fit.
Gossip Girl ran from 2007 to 2012 on The CW, introducing viewers to a group of privileged Upper East Side teens experiencing love, friendship, and drama as the once-anonymous Gossip Girl wrote about their secrets scandals online. Traditionally, reboots revolve around new characters tackling an older series' original idea, while revivals continue a concluded show with the same characters and general story. With Gossip Girl's characters and actors now grown and in new life stages, revisiting the first show's world would probably be more troublesome than rewarding. Are we really supposed to believe that Serena (Blake Lively) and Dan lived happily ever after following his confession to being the problematic Gossip Girl?
On the other hand, the series' concept of online gossip and communication is even more common nowadays, so it'd be pretty fascinating to see new teens tackle that dynamic. In 2016, executive producer Josh Schwartz admitted that he and co-producer Stephanie Savage hadn't considered a reboot, but told E! News, "The world has become Gossip Girl now... Now literally everyone is Gossip Girl."
Dan's stealthy stalking of his peers was way more complex to pull off back in the day, but based on what he and his friends got up to with Sidekick phones and no Instagram, a new Gossip Girl with today's technology could be even more intense. While both Lively and Meester haven't exactly ruled out the possibility of stepping back into Serena and Blair's shoes, The CW definitely has a plethora of story possibilities without relying on familiar characters. Plus, seeing as Penn Badgley is busy playing a modern-day Dan on You, there's no desire to find out where he and the other characters are in 2019, right?
Fingers crossed that we hear more about a Gossip Girl reboot soon. If Dan / Joe Goldberg has any scoop, we'll give in to the pull of his blog ASAP.
