Gossip Girl was canceled by HBO Max earlier this week. Josh Safran was saddened by the news, but he suspected a cancellation was coming because of how many streaming shows have been canceled in recent months.

Starring Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak, and Savannah Lee Smith, the series introduced viewers to a new group of private school teens living on the Upper East Side.

Safran said the following about HBO Max canceling the series, per Vanity Fair:

“I think you’re looking at a lot of cancellations at this particular network, but [also] every network, every streamer. In the rush to announce themselves, they spent money—which is great for us. I’m very grateful for that. Over time there is debt, and that’s why we’re seeing a wave of cancellation. So sure, I’m sure the merger had something to do with it, but also we are very expensive. Even if there hadn’t been a merger, who knows? I don’t know numbers, I can’t speak to that. I know that people love this season. I feel the love, I definitely get more reactions on social media than any other show I’ve ever worked on.

All we can do is have made a great show. We’re really proud of this season. I’m also proud of season one, but I think that the saddest thing about what’s happening these days in the marketplace is that the whole point of TV was to create characters and worlds that could grow and deepen as they went on. That’s becoming less and less likely for the majority of shows, and that sucks.”

As for what a third season would have looked like, Safran did talk a bit about that as well:

“The hope was that we would get to season three. We actually had a season three mini-room where we arched out the season last year during the shooting of season two—it was a while ago. So, I would’ve loved to have seen season three come to light because the plot was amazing. Would’ve been honestly happy if it ended after season three. My goal was to get to four seasons because then they would’ve graduated with the exception of Zoya (Whitney Peak) and Shan (Grace Duah). My point was to do a semester a year and do four seasons and be done, I would’ve really liked to get it to the end of season three. We were asked at some point awhile back to add cliffhangers to the finale of season two. And we did, and I feel bad about that. However, graciously, HBO Max afforded me the opportunity to go back in and amend some of the stuff in the finale at the end. It doesn’t all get tied up, but the story engine for season three was launched at the end of season two, and I removed that.”

When the news of the cancellation of Gossip Girl was first released, Safran did mention looking for another home for the series, but he doesn’t see that happening.

What do you think? Did you want to see a third season of Gossip Girl on HBO Max?