Rumors about a spinoff of Gossip Girl—the CW’s sole kinda-sorta-by-its-standards breakaway hit, about the back-biting ways of the Upper East Side’s teenage elite—have been flying since last summer, when rumor had it that the new show would center on Jenny Humphrey, the young and socially precocious girl played by Taylor Momsen. (Also the only cast member whose real age approximates her age on the show, adding a level of ookiness to her character’s romantic aspirations.)
Turns out the rumors about a Jenny-based show are wrong, but a spinoff is definitely in the works. The new show will focus instead on the wild early days of Lily van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford), future mother of the glamorous Serena, in 1980s Los Angeles. Young Lily comes from money, but in the series, she’s forced to move in with her black sheep of a sister and attend—gulp—public school, a humiliating ordeal that sparks some very bad behavior. The current plan for the spinoff involves working young Lily’s storyline into an episode of Gossip Girl via flashbacks; clearly, the network (and creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage) hope that GG addicts will be hooked by this ancient, text-message-free world.
More details can be found here. XOXO.