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Veronica Mars Review: The Hulu Reboot Is Just As Good As the Original


Good news, fellow citizens of Neptune. The fourth season of mid-aughts teen-noir Veronica Mars just dropped on Hulu on July 19, and it’s already joined the rarefied ranks of Will & Grace and Queer Eye: That is, it’s a reboot that’s just as good as the original. Fans of the franchise (which included two fantastic seasons, a mediocre third, and a misfire of a movie) won’t be disappointed, and newcomers…well, newcomers should go back and watch season one.

But if you’re just tuning in, here’s a quick recap: Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) is the daughter of private investigator Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni). Keith was the sheriff of the seaside hamlet of Neptune, California until he “botched” the investigation of the murder of Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried). Veronica and Lilly had been best friends, but her dad’s investigation essentially leads to her becoming a friendless outcast at the start of the series. What follows is a season that revolves around Veronica discovering who done it, finding love along the way, and solving the equally pressing (and not unrelated) mystery of who raped her at a high school party. Veronica Mars handled a complicated and compelling case with witty dialogue and genuine emotion, establishing itself as one of the smartest teen dramas around.

Michael Desmond/Hulu

But Veronica’s work is always about more than just the hunt for justice, though it was definitely also about that. Veronica Mars is about race and sex and class, friendship and love, entering the adult world before you’re ready. Like Buffy, it was the teen girl experience heightened to the thousandth degree. By the end, fans found themselves not just rooting for Veronica but positively screaming for her. The show inspired a fierce fanbase, which is why now, years later, Hulu has blessed us with a reboot. All caught up? Good. Mild spoilers ahead.

From the get, this new season assures us that the more things change, the more they, you know, don’t. Veronica’s first case of the season is helping a wealthy divorcée named Carson (Eliza Coupe) de-bug her smart home after her ex hacked into it. In other words, this season has all the major themes—sex, revenge, manipulation, harassment, and class conflict—fans of the series have come to expect. As for Veronica herself, she’s living (and having hot, hot sex) with boyfriend Logan (Jason Dohring), working (and bantering) with father Keith, and, naturally, solving murders. She’s a 2019 girl with a smartphone and an updated version of her school-age messenger bag, but she’s basically the same Veronica: She picks locks, she loves dogs, she rejects Logan’s marriage proposal because the wounds of her adolescence have left too much scar tissue.



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A ‘Gossip Girl’ Reboot Is Officially, Officially Happening


This is not a drill, people: A Gossip Girl reboot is officially happening.

Entertainment Weekly reports the streaming service HBO Max has ordered 10 episodes of a Gossip Girl revival, with the show’s original creative heads, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, on board as executive producers. Josh Safran, who was both a writer and producer on the OG Gossip Girl, will serve as the reboot’s showrunner.

According to EW, it’s not known at this point whether any of the show’s original cast members—including Blake Lively (Serena), Leighton Meester (Blair), and Chace Crawford (Nate)—are returning to the reboot, but most have expressed at least some interest in the idea.

“It sort of all depends,” Lively told Variety in 2017. “Would I do seven years of the show? No, because it’s hard work and I’ve got my babies, and I don’t want to be away from them that much. But I’ve just learned in life you never say never. I’m looking to do something that I haven’t done yet, not something that I did. But would I do that? Who knows—if it was good, if it made sense. We had so much fun shooting and living and working in New York City.”

Meanwhile, Meester told E! News in 2019, “No one’s ever asked me [about a reboot]. No one’s ever talked to me about it except for in interviews, and I always say the same. I never say never. So I don’t know. No one’s sent me that information, it’s coming from you.”

Penn Badgley (Dan) and Ed Westwick (Chuck) are the only actors who seem to not be so keen on the idea. “I suppose you should never say never,” Badgley told Variety in 2018. “I suppose there are conditions where I would. Do I think those conditions will ever exist? No. But they might.” And Westwick told the Radio Times in 2017 that the show is “played out” and “done.”

People on Twitter are, naturally, elated with this news:

Reboot details are sparse at this point, but of course we’ll keep you updated as they roll in.



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The ‘Gossip Girl’ Reboot: Everything We Know So Far


Could Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf be making a comeback? Some fans are crossing their fingers after news broke today (July 17) that an updated version of Gossip Girl is officially happening. Yes, the former CW show—based on the book series by Cecily von Ziegesar— is getting the reboot treatment by WarnerMedia’s soon-to-be-launched streaming service, HBO Max.

Rumors of a Gossip Girl return have been swirling since February. The exact details are still under wraps, but the log line reveals a few clues about what we can expect: “Eight years after the original website went dark, a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of Gossip Girl. The prestige series will address just how much social media—and the landscape of New York itself—has changed in the intervening years,” it reads.

Beyond that, here’s what we know so far about the series.

There will be 10 episodes. According to Deadline, HBO has ordered 10 hour-long episodes of the new version of the show. As the log line shows, it’ll tackle contemporary issues, including social media and online privacy, that have changed some of the dynamics in today’s high schools.

The original creators are behind the new version. Original program creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are going to be executive producers. Joshua Safran, a writer and producer on the OG show, is also on board and in charge of writing the reboot.

There’s no word on the cast yet. While the show will focus on a new generation, fans are hopeful that the stars from the original series will make an appearance.

In past interviews, the cast has had lots of different opinions about a reboot. Chace Crawford (Nate) has signaled before that he wasn’t wild about new episodes with the original stars.

“I don’t think anyone’s been seriously talking about that. I think they’d have to come up with a real plan, and I know Josh and Stephanie would have to be a part of it,” he told Entertainment Tonight in February. “It is funny to me, it’s almost become a classic now. It probably goes to show you that we shouldn’t be redoing it. I can’t be in high school anymore. That’s the thing. I don’t even know what they would do. For me personally, I would love to see everybody again and I loved everybody and I would love to work with everybody, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a reality.”



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Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan Might Be Doing a Reboot of ‘The Simple Life’


In 2003, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie blessed us with The Simple Life, a gloriously bonkers reality show in which the two socialites “roughed it” in blue-collar America. They traded in their designer clothes and penthouse apartments for bunkbeds and evening shifts at fast food restaurants. Was it problematic? Sure, but undeniably funny at times—and a formative piece of 2000s pop culture.

So it’s no surprise fans are begging for it to come back. (We are in the era of reboots, after all.) But Hilton has said time and time again that nothing is on the books. “They actually approached me to redo it again, but my schedule was so insane that I didn’t have time to do it, so I said no, but it would be pretty epic,” she told the Gay Times last fall.

Maybe her schedule is a bit more flexible now, though. There’s a theory floating around the internet that a Simple Life reboot is happening, and it will star Paris Hilton and—wait for it—Lindsay Lohan.

The only evidence comes from The Simple Life‘s “official” Twitter account (which isn’t verified). On Tuesday, June 25, whoever runs the page tweeted out a classic image of Hilton and Richie and wrote, “#SimpleLife6” alongside an eye emoji.

They then followed this up with two female emojis: one blond and one redhead. It didn’t take long for people to put two and two together. When one fan inquired if this meant the reboot would star Hilton and Lohan, the account responded with a “shhh” emoji. Interesting….

Then the account basically confirmed the suspicions by posting a photo of Lohan and Hilton from 2005 and captioning it, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Enemies isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe Hilton and Lohan—I’d venture to say they’re “frenemies.” The two were close at one point during the early aughts, but their relationship has since fizzled. Hilton’s made several shady comments about Lohan but confirmed they don’t get along this year on Watch What Happens Live. When host Andy Cohen asked Hilton to say three nice things about the Mean Girls star, she responded with “beyond, lame, and embarrassing.”





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A Gossip Girl Reboot Is in 'Discussion'


Gossip Girl here—your number one source for Manhattan’s elite just might be returning to spread the freshest gossip for another day (or, Nelly Yuki willing, for six more seasons and a movie).

That’s right: The CW is apparently having “discussions” about rebooting the beloved late 2000s drama that was Gossip Girl, according to TV Line. The news comes straight from CW’s president, Mark Pedowitz, who was recently asked about a reboot at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour.

“There’s a discussion, but I don’t know if we’re there yet,” Pedowitz reportedly said. “I don’t know what it would be. A lot is up to Warner Bros. and [exec producers] Josh [Schwartz] and Steph[anie Savage], ’cause you don’t want to do anything without them.”

Those details are admittedly pretty vague, but then again, it’s never seemed totally out of the realm of possibility that the CW would bring back the show, which was based loosely on the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar. For one, multiple cast members have said they’d be down for a new version—including star Blake Lively, who played the flighty, free-spirited Serena Van der Woodsen. Back in 2017, Blake told Variety, “I don’t know. Why not? It sort of all depends. Would I do seven years of the show? No, because it’s hard work and I’ve got my babies, and I don’t want to be away from them that much. But I’ve just learned in life you never say never.”

Meanwhile, Leighton Meester a.k.a. queen bee Blair Waldorf, previously told Vanity Fair that a reboot was not out of the question. “If everyone was into it and if the timing was right, you know?…I don’t want to say, ‘No, never …’” she said at the time. Let’s hope that’s still true, since we can’t imagine a hypothetical re-imagined GG without the elegance and perfectionism of B.

It’s not even the first time that the showrunners have pondered what a present-day Gossip Girl could look like, with Josh Schwartz telling E! in 2016 that “the world has become Gossip Girl now, and now literally everyone is Gossip Girl.”

Which, sure, a contemporary Gossip Girl would definitely have to up her game to compete with the sheer amount of information currently available online and accessible to basically everyone. But there are plenty of ways the show’s creators could infuse drama back into the Upper East Side. Maybe they’d pull a Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists and bring in a new generation of snobby prep school kids, as was hinted at in Gossip Girl‘s final episode. Or maybe they’d do a more adult version, looking at the infamous socialites as they settle down in to married life, with children and charities to run.

Anyway, it looks like Penn Badgley might want to start making room in his You-filled schedule, though we suspect he wouldn’t have too hard a time switching between Joe Goldberg and Dan Humphrey.

Hey, maybe we need a Gossip Girl reboot so someone can finally put Dan in his place…fingers crossed it’s Nelly Yuki. Plus, we all could use a bit of Blair Waldorf style back in our lives. XOXO.

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The 'Charmed' Reboot Is Officially Happening, and It's Getting a 'Feminist' Twist


It’s official: 2018 is the year of the witch. First, news broke the CW is making a Riverdale sister series about Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (That show is still happening, by the way; it’s just been moved to Netflix.) And now a reboot that was announced last year is officially, officially happening: Charmed. Yes, members of my coven, the show that essentially brought witches into the mainstream is coming back. And we finally have some details.

The logistics from last year’s vague report still hold up: The reboot is happening at the CW. According to Entertainment Weekly, the network has already put in a pilot order. Jessica O’Toole and Amy Rardin, who have credits on Jane the Virgin, are writing the script, so get excited.

That’s not all we know, though. This reboot is also receiving a great—and necessary—feminist twist. Per EW, the CW describes this new incarnation as a “fierce, funny, feminist reboot.” “Between vanquishing supernatural demons, tearing down the patriarchy, and maintaining familial bonds, a witch’s work is never done,” the network’s official description reads.

Oh, and there’s one more detail that’ll really make fans happy: The reboot’s happening in the present-day—not the ’70s, as previously reported—which opens the opportunity for the Charmed OGs (Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, Holly Marie Combs, and Shannen Doherty) to make cameos. Milano and McGowan are both vocal feminist activists now, so they should especially consider dropping by Halliwell Manor again. Cast a spell, and maybe it’ll happen.

There’s no official premiere date for the Charmed reboot yet, but fingers crossed it happens sooner rather than later. It’s high time for a new generation to learn all about Prue, Piper, and Phoebe.

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Big News For Charmed Fans



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