'Gossip Girl' revival scrapped after Season 2

Greetings, Upper Eastsiders! Highly-anticipated revival of the American teen drama 'Gossip Girl' has been scrapped at HBO Max, however, its finale season will drop on the streamer on January 26.

According to Variety, a US-based news outlet, Season 1 premiered in July of 2021, and though it received a critics' score of 38 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, Variety's Caroline Framke praised it, writing the show "does immediately address one issue that plagued the previous 'Gossip Girl' by flipping it on its head in a way that energizes the new one. This time, there will be no guessing games as to who Gossip Girl might be -- at least not for the audience." (In the revival, the embittered teachers at the show's fictional private school were Gossip Girl. Season 2 jumped higher on Rotten Tomatoes, but based on fewer reviews.

"So here's the goss: it is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to announce GOSSIP GIRL will not be continuing on HBO Max," series showrunner Joshua Safran wrote on Instagram. "The EPs and I will forever be grateful to the network and studio for their faith and support; the writers for their devious brains and dexterous talent; the superstar cast for being the greatest of collaborators and friends; and the crew for their hard work, dedication and love for the project. This was honestly the greatest set I ever worked on, top to bottom. We are currently looking for another home, but in this climate, that might prove an uphill bottle, and so if this is the end, at least we went out on the highest of highs.

Thank you for watching, and I hope you'll tune into the finale next Thursday to see how it all comes together."In September 2021, HBO Max announced the release of Season 2, boasting that the first season had "record viewership" for the streamer. In December 2022, the second season made its premiere.

As per a report by Variety, 'Gossip Girl' is based on the series of the same name that ran on the CW for six seasons from 2007 to 2012, which was itself based on the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar. Eight years after the blogger's website from the first season went down, the revival follows a new generation of teenagers attending private schools in New York who are first exposed to social surveillance. In order to maintain control over the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite, Gossip Girl stops at nothing in Season 2, which began during the second semester of junior year.

The cast includes Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak, Savannah Lee Smith, and Grace Duah; Michelle Trachtenberg makes an appearance as a guest performer. Georgina Sparks, Trachtenberg's part from the first season of the show, is back.

The show's reboot was created and run by Safran, who also served as executive producer of the original 'Gossip Girl.'