Does Anybody Really Care That The ‘Gossip Woman’ Reboot Has Been Cancelled?

“ you like me”… besides apparently we don’t. After simply two seasons, the Gossip Woman reboot has been dropped by HBO Max, leaving us OG followers out within the bitter Manhattan chilly, pondering why precisely its return fell flatter than Serena’s makes an attempt to remake herself as “Sabrina”.

9 years after the unique collection ended, the Gossip Woman revival appeared to have all the correct parts for a compelling follow-up: it was farewell to the comedian sans stylings of the Noughties weblog and hey to a social media-obsessed world of selfies, spon-con and advantage signalling. Throw in a smartphone-savvy technology on a mission to assert their Warholian quarter-hour of fame, and you’ve got plots aplenty for Gossip Woman 2.0. Or so you’ll suppose. 

Let’s begin with the entire “academics as Gossip Woman” factor. The unique collection hinged on an nameless blogger – an “Orwellian large sister” as one instructor aptly describes her – whose disembodied omnipresence allowed her to meddle within the lives of the present’s characters with out justification, or certainly the should be bodily current within the unfolding drama. But within the reboot, we’re subjected to the limitless agonising of Kate Keller (performed by ex-teen blogger Tavi Gevinson), the earnest English instructor who decides to revive the weblog in Instagram kind to maintain her rich and entitled college students in line. Posting half-naked pictures of minors on-line? It’s for their very own good! Revealing {that a} scholar’s mom died giving delivery to her? Self-discipline and life classes! Conflicted Kate and her ethical hokey cokey took up far an excessive amount of airtime, and finally felt implausible as a premise.  

There was additionally a failure to lean into the nostalgia. The reboot launched in 2021, a 12 months affected by a pandemic, rising residing prices and Boris Johnson – a interval once we simply wished to vanish into a well-known and frivolous world populated by characters we knew and liked. Let’s be trustworthy, when most Gossip Woman followers heard the phrase “reboot”, we hoped to see Serena on the varsity run, Nate campaigning for workplace and Chuck’s dad bod. Simply consider all the opposite remakes which have landed in recent times – Gilmore Ladies, Sex And The City, High Gun – all heavy-handed with the throwbacks and unabashed of their resurrection of outdated solid members (see SJP teasing Aiden’s return simply this month). We wished consolation meals in TV kind, but the brand new collection didn’t provide the familiarity we craved.

As for the newcomers? Whereas Jordan Alexander performed Julien, an image-obsessed social media star, very convincingly, the entire Max-Audrey-Aki love triangle paled compared to the sweeping, will-they-won’t-they romantic epic that was Chuck and Blair. We simply by no means felt as invested of their lives. Possibly it was the absence of razor-sharp dialogue – the meme-worthy soundbites that made the unique characters come to life (“As soon as males have tasted caviar, it baffles me how they accept catfish”). Or perhaps they merely weren’t given sufficient time to develop alongside all of the weighty themes the present tried to handle – cancel tradition, gun violence, prescription drug abuse – all necessary points that ended up being considerably skimmed over. Nothing was fairly afforded the eye it deserved – together with the personalities.