With six weeks to go before the Sept. 13 season premiere ofGossip Girl, producers are beginning to get chatty about the new season and the much-anticipated Paris episodes. In addition to debuting the first footage from the two-episode arc for TV critics Thursday, producers also confirmed-- parlez vous spoilers? -- that, duh, Chuck Bass is totally alive (but he'll be walking with a cane!). They also revealed that scenes were shot at Musee D'Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, Gare du Nord and Avenue Montaigne.
Some other tidbits and teases from executive producers Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz:
-- A giant female music personality is close to signing on for a guest role. "She'll not only preform an original song but will also act with the characters," Savage teases. "She's both new and iconic." (Madonna, perhaps?) Look for the performance during episode seven, right in time for November sweeps.
-- Yes, Dan is seen with Georgina's baby in an early episode. But is the kid, you know, his? Savage isn't being helpful: "Georgina's baby is Georgina's baby," she told us. "And you will learn all as the episodes unfold." But she did promise the show would not be doing "a baby fake-out" and said we'll "be seeing Georgina Sparks in more ways than one." (Wait, is that sign of a twin twist?)
As for what seems to be a teen pregnancy storyline, Savage argues: Not really. "Is Georgina really a teen? I think she might be immortal. She may be 200 years old," Savage says. The storyline will balance laughs and drama, she added: "There's a lot of humor coming from young people trying to deal with this unexpected situation, but there's also a lot of underlying heart and emotion in the story, too."
-- Taylor Momsen's Jenny Humphrey will definitely return next fall. "We wanna keep it up in the air where her character will go," Savage says, once again refusing to spill much. "Obviously she left in a dramatic fashion at end of last season. We’re excited about being able to create some tension about her character. I don’t want to say exactly which episode (she returns), but it’ll be in first half of season."
-- Some more on Chuck, post-shooting: "He has a cane and we discover that he may not have gotten the best medical care possible," Savage says.
-- Sorry, Carla Bruni will not be making a visit to Gossip Paris. Nor will Woody Allen, even though the director "was shooting while we were there," Savage says. "We were hoping we would run across them so we could have a random shot of Woody and Serena crossing the street."
-- What up with Vanessa and Dan? "Vanessa is back from Haiti and she's definitely going to be in the Dan story," Savage says.
-- Savage confirmed a report from earlier this month that the show will do an episode tied toVogue's Fashion's Night Out. Diane von Furstenberg will have a cameo.
-- If Savage gets her way, there'll be more Gossip road trips in the future. "When we came away from Paris, we were like, 'Tokyo!' Now that we’ve done it once, we’re completely arrogant and want to take on all countries. International travel is part of the characters' lives. We’d love to do more of it."
