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Yep, the writers strike has put the kibosh on the first Gossip Girl season. Originally planned for 22 episodes, the season stopped short with only 13.
There’s a lot of speculation about what will happen and whether the season will pick up before summer. Here’s my guess: I doubt it.
The writer’s strike is now well into its tenth week – the exact amount of days is all over the place. The strike officially began on November 5, 2007 after contracts expired at the end of October 2007. As November 5 was a Monday, many folks use the end of the contract period as the “work stop date.”
Gossip Girl originally aired its premiere episode in the US on September 19. Less than a month later, the CW picked up the show for a full season. This doesn’t mean that the CW must show all 22 episodes – even if they had been completed, the network doesn’t necessarily have to run all of them. It just means that they ordered (and likely paid for) 22 episodes.
However, only 13 episodes were penned before the strike. Even assuming that the strike ends tomorrow (and let’s face it, the chances of that happening aren’t good), this would not mean more Gossip Girl tomorrow. It would mean that everyone goes back to work and, with any luck, we’d have episodes in a few weeks – possibly months.
So, that’s the bad news.
The good news is that the CW will rebroadcast the prior episodes between now and then. My guess is that they’re hoping that 13 weeks will be enough time to keep the buzz going – the last significant writers strike lasted 22 weeks, so 23 weeks (10 strike weeks so far + 13 planned repeat episode weeks) would put them well past the last strike end date, assuming that the strikes ended similarly. But who knows?
Of course, just because there are no original episodes for now doesn’t mean that all is lost. There will be lots of Gossip Girl news between now and then. Stop by and chat!
[...] be interesting to see where they take the plot next – Gossip Girl Report has an interesting post about how the writer’s strike will affect GG. I’m not expecting [...]
Hmm, the Writer’s Strike does kind of make television a bit boring, now that most shows are sort of just fizzling out in terms of the number of new episodes that are left to be shown.
Now, I haven’t read all the Gossip Girl book so far (only about 3 and a half of them: 1, 2, 5, and now reading 6) and it seems that the tv series seems to differ a fair amount more than expected? Did anyone else find that?
Either way, the show’s still pretty sweet.
WHY IS IT OVER
THATS THE SADEST THING EVER, I LOVE THIS SHOW!
Isabella,
The TV show is waaay different than the book. It seems like they took the central premises and characters and just created different stories.
i know, agreed totally.
but its still a really good show, its like the only thing i watch. i dont want it over
it better come back!
AH but the show cant end like this its too sad and not right
[...] Sigh. For now, we’ll have to rely on those rebroadcasts… [...]