HBO Max has a hit on its hands with the reboot of Gossip Girl.
The streamer announced a renewal on Thursday that it had ordered Gossip Girl Season 2.
The first six episodes of the series, which debuted July 8 to become the best launch for a Max Original Drama series this year, are available to stream now.
The remaining six episodes of season one will debut in November. The delay is thought to have been due to filming during COVID-19.
Developed by showrunner Joshua Safran, a writer, and executive producer on the original series, this extension of the pop culture classic takes us back to the Upper East Side, where we find a new generation of New York private school teens who are introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark.
The series explores just how much social media — and the landscape of New York itself — has changed in the intervening years.
The series is based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and the original show, developed by Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage, who are both executive producers on the new series.
The robust cast includes Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak, and Savannah Lee Smith.
The cast also includes Todd Almond, Adam Chanler-Berat, Johnathan Fernandez, and Jason Gotay.
HBO Max previously revealed that Gossip Girl saw record viewership over its first weekend on the platform and also took over Twitter in the No. 1 trending spot.
The series had 15 billion total social impressions at launch and the series gained around 5.2 billion impressions from content inspired by the series on TikTok.
Gossip Girl is produced by Fake Empire and Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios.
The series is written, executive produced, and developed by Joshua Safran of Random Acts. Executive producers also include Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage of Fake Empire and Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo of Alloy Entertainment. Lis Rowinski of Fake Empire serves as co-executive producer.
We’ll be honest:
We were initially not that impressed with the reboot, but as the six-episode summer run progressed, the series found its footing, leaving things in an interesting place for the second half of the season.
A new show taking such a big midseason hiatus is concerning because the target audience will likely find other shows to occupy themselves with.
What are your thoughts on the renewal?
Have you checked out the reboot?
Hit the comments.
And, if you want to throw it all the way back to the original series, you can watch Gossip Girl online right here via TV Fanatic.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.