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Is the Gossip Girl Spin-off Sparking a New Era of TV Prequels?
by Nadya Vlassoff
 After months of speculation and rumors, a Gossip Girl spin-off has been officially confirmed, with casting already underway. Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, both creators of the hit CW series Gossip Girl, are on tap to write the new show, which will be set in a prequel setting as it chronicles the life of Serena van der Woodsen’s mother, Lily in her teen years.
Although the young version of Lily van der Woodsen is yet to be cast, CW staple Krysten Ritter has been tapped to co-star as Lily’s sister. The new Gossip Girl spin-off will focus on Lily and her fall from lavish grace at a Montecito boarding school and her move to a public school in the San Fernando Valley where she eventually meets Rufus Humphrey.
Earlier rumors had forecast a Gossip Girl spin-off for the character of Jenny Humphrey, played by Taylor Momsen, but creator Schwartz, who did not want to take away from the original cast, quickly dispelled reports.
The first episode of the upcoming spin-off will air as a backdoor pilot, which allows it to appear as an actual Gossip Girl episode before becoming its own show on May 11 during the final set of sweeps weeks. The spin-off set up episode will reunite Ritter with former Veronica Mars co-star Kristin Bell who narrates the show but is never seen.
 How much potential does the prequel format have in striking Gossip gold for a second time? Well, it’s hard to say. But we may be seeing many more back-to-the-past spin-offs in the near future since the upcoming Gossip Girl prequel follows on the heels the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Ronald. D. Moore’s upcoming Galactica prequel, Caprica. Like the new Gossip Girl appendage, Caprica goes back in time to explore a current family dynamic that already exists on the show. In Caprica’s case, it’s the Adama family. With Gossip Girl, it’s a teenage Lily and likely family members and characters we haven’t seen.
Is this the beginning of modern day time-travel on TV? At this point, who knows? But it’s a fact that TV executives certainly don’t ignore successful trends and new formats if they attract viewers. With that in mind, it’s not that far of a stretch to say we may be seeing the dawn of a new “prequel” spin-off era, with several more shows following suit.
Interestingly enough, ABC’s Desperate Housewives took the show and characters five years into the future and now we’re seeing two shows travel back in time with separate spin-offs. It’s clear that TV creators are shaking up the timelines of the conventional spin-off to open the door for more options. Like Gossip Girl creator, Josh Schwartz, recently revealed, a prequel allows the current CW cast to remain intact while capitalizing on the popularity of the show.
But any time you play with timelines on a series, there’s always the option of incorporating current characters into the spin-off via flashbacks or dreams. However, the biggest challenge for Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage may be to resist the temptation of crossing over both Gossip Girl shows in a way that doesn’t make logical sense, especially if the spin-off needs a boost in the ratings to survive.
 Gossip Girl has already faced criticism from die-hard fans of the Cecily Von Ziegesar books over the creative liberties incorporated into the show. When making a weekly TV series, though, certain elements of source material need to be expanded upon in ways that fill in blanks. It’s the unseen elements in between the lines of books that sometimes provide the foundation for relationships and conflict that people didn’t vividly imagine in the pages. Gossip Girl has been burning up the ratings, so Schwartz and Savage are doing something right.
No word yet on just how well the Gossip Girl spin-off may go over with fans. But the new CW series has frequently prided itself on shock value and a Gossip Girl prequel that focuses on a young Lily goes right along with that. However, if it doesn’t succeed, at any time the current Lily could simply say the events that went down in a spin-off were nothing but a bad dream. Only time will tell.
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