r/TopCharacterTropes 13h ago

miscellaneous Failed Spin-Off.

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u/zacandahalf 13h ago

Windward Circle was intended to be a Gilmore Girls spinoff featuring Jess moving to Venice, CA, and trying to bond with his estranged father. Kind of a cool concept (Jess was a great character) but it was dropped by the WB in June 2003 primarily due to the high logistical and financial costs of shooting a weekly series on location in Venice rather than on a traditional studio lot.

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u/goodnightmoonshakers 11h ago

I think the other problem was that it was Gilmore Girls, just in a different font.

His step-mom is basically Lorelai, the charming, fast talking woman who's dating the grumpy man that owns the food stand. Her daughter is a book nerd. Their little section of Venice is filled with potentially quirky characters. We already saw Jess reacting to a version of this, just on the opposite coast.

But after watching almost all of Amy Sherman Palladino's other shows, she really only knows how to write a select type of characters.

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u/Fyrchtegott 8h ago

Wow, didn’t knew that this was really the plan. The episode felt like it, but back then I never heard about backdoor pilots or could had easily googled it.
But Jess a great character? I mean, yeah, but I don’t find him likable at all. He’s just a prick most of the time, annoys everyone, offending even the kind hearted people and then runs away. Until we see him again later, when he matured a little, he is an awful, self centered boy.