Gossip Girl’s got a new phone number. This time, anyone can sign up for texts from the notorious queen of hearsay, not just those on the Upper East Side. In a now-deleted teaser shared on the official Gossip Girl Instagram, between shots of cocktail glasses and perfectly manicured nails texting, one phone in particular stands out—the one with an “xoxo”-patterned case. Then, the phone number (917) 809-4277 appears. In the caption, the owner writes “Text me.” That number is now prominently displayed in a still image on the account, accompanied by a signature sign-off from your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.
After texting the number, Gossip Girl drops a line for you to sign up for her “blasts,” a.k.a. messages full of juicy secrets and information about the new reboot series on HBO Max. Today, her sacred word says, “You know I like to keep you fed, so save your appetites for a little treat coming your way this Friday. XOXO, Gossip Girl.” We’re anticipating a full trailer for the series, which premieres sometime in July.
According to Deadline, the new series picks up eight years after the original concluded, when “a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of Gossip Girl. The prestige series will address just how much social media—and the landscape of New York itself—has changed in the intervening years.”
The original series’ creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage will return as executive producers. As of right now, Kristen Bell (the voice of Gossip Girl) is the only Gossip Girl cast member reprising her role. However, Schwartz hopes more will make an appearance. “We’ve reached out to all of them to let them know it was happening, and we’d love for them to be involved if they want to be involved, but certainly didn’t want to make it contingent upon [them being involved],” Schwartz told reporters in 2019. “They played these characters for six years, and if they felt like they were good with that, we want to respect that, but obviously… it would be great to see them again.” Regardless, the O.G. characters will be mentioned by the new cast at one point or another.
8 Comments
Christ couldn’t Schwartz have rebooted the OC instead? Or Chuck? I think Chuck would work really well right now. It ended right before the real explosion of social media, smart home devices, etc.
We’d never watched Chuck until recently. The first couple of seasons were fun, but man does that show get stupid in season 3. If someone’s going to reboot Chuck, I hope they do it with better writing.And fewer Subway product placements.
Much like the OC, Chuck really regained its form in the last season. My only hesitancy to rewatch it is that I’m afraid all the “high tech” stuff will be hilariously and distractingly dated.
And the Subway thing became a running gag, as it was basically the only way that NBC would keep renewing the show. It started as a fan campaign after season 2 and basically saved the show. The Subway product placement pretty much the reason the show got three more seasons:https://blog.hollywoodbranded.com/how-product-placement-saved-chuck“The show was finally renewed for a third season in May 2009, and the network didn’t shy away from speaking about how instrumental of a role Subway played in granting the renewal of the show. NBC executives were clear to mention how Chuck was able to move forward due to a new partnership that would be taking place between Subway and Chuck where the sandwiches would be incorporated within various episodes of the show via product placement.”
I wouldn’t say that the tech is dated, exactly, so much as consistently preposterous (in terms of tech being able to do things that are flat-out impossible) and inaccurate (in terms of me thinking to myself “that’s not how that works” about five times an episode).But it wasn’t the tech that bothered me; tech that does miraculous things is a standard trope of fiction, especially spy fiction. No, what bothered me was the way they handled Chuck becoming “a spy.” As if the James Bond sort of superspy was an extremely rigid job category with very specific rules about what you have to do to qualify. The number of times that someone worried about whether Chuck was really “a spy” or not really started getting on my nerves, especially because it became the main plot driver for like half the episodes in season 3, and led to such ridiculous plots like the idea that the only way Chuck could become a “real spy” would be if he stopped having a conscience and would mercilessly kill anyone he was ordered to.Season 4 (the parts of it we’ve seen, anyway) at least left that behind, but they’ve been dragging out the “is Chuck’s mom really evil or not???” thing for several episodes now.As annoying as the Chuck-centric plots could sometimes be, I like those more than almost anything involving Jeff, Lester, Morgan, or Big Mike. Some of their subplots are occasionally pretty funny, but there’s a lot of Jeff and Lester sexually harassing women in the first couple of seasons, which the show treats as harmlessly amusing; and I’m sure it came off better in, like, 2007, but these days it’s hard to look at it and do anything but cringe.
Ugh, man, i totally forgot how much they used “spy” as a thing you had to check all the boxes for. I always did find that a really weird narrative crutch.But yeah, there are lot of shows that i loved, as late as the early 2010s, that have a ton of jokes that REALLY have not aged well.
Gossip Girls would work more, especially since there is ample territory to take it into later day “Saw” territory in that Gossip Girl has become the new Anonymous and Dan blew his brains out with a shotgun when he realized that he couldn’t stop his Frankenstein Monster once he managed to psychologically torture the upper east side snobs into loving him like he did. Bonus points, they could get Jason Dorhing to do the voice of the male version of Gossip Girl (Gossip Guy) and have him and Belle banter back and forth via texts/blog posts from rival Gossip Girl camps in a “The Boss’s Will” type struggle over what Gossip Girl/Guy should be.
Eat the rich.
Just keep in mind that Gossip Girl is actually Dan Humphrey. If anyone’s reading this who quit the show before it ended, that’s not a joke.