Hopefully this will add as the show gives us more background info....I got the idea from the VM board. Could be fun. I'll edit whenever we get more info.

Late 1960's- Lily Van Woodsen and Rupert Humphrey are born?

Late 1980's/early 1990's- Lily, Rupert, and Nate's dad are partying up at places like Limelight and the Tunnel in NYC. Lily becomes a NIN groupie. It can't be earlier than 1988, and it's probably around 1989, when Pretty Hate Machine gets released. Rupert's band becomes popular. Lily and Rupert have "a thing".

1990/1991- Serena, Dan, Blair, Nate, and Chuck are born.

November 1990- Blair is born

1993- Eric and Jenny are born

Fall 2005- The gang enters high school

Fall 2006- Sophomore year. Serena heads for the hills to boarding school after she hooks up with Nate. Blair takes over as Queen Bee.

Fall 2007- Junior year. Serena comes back, meets Dan. Blair and her reconcile. Jenny enters high school. So on and so forth.

Spring 2009- The gang graduates?

Spring 2011- Jenny graduates from high school?

The O.C was kinda screwy on its timeline, so its interesting to see if GG might do better.

It's so weird to be the same age as TV characters, I'd gotten used to them being ages older than me. And now we're the same...

It's weird to be OLDER than TV characters. I was one year younger than the OC gang, but these kids are "younger" than me by a few years...and they look much older. Even though the actors are like 20, they still look much older than me.

I kind of doubt they'll really graduate in two seasons (two years). Unless they go the OTH route and have one year split up over two years. Or they could be like The O.C., and make then have junior year twice. I don't really mind though, because I like high school shows. They tend to fall apart once they're out of school.

90210 repeated the junior year as well. Maybe GG will have a summer season like 90210, though I don't know how that would work because I think the monied upper-crust types in NYC go to the Hamptons for the summer.

So....

November 1990- Blair is born.

I'm still in shock over that one. I know it's an exaggerated TV show with actors in their twenties, but STILL.

It just occured to me that yeah, these characters were supposedly born in 1990. Holy crap. For some reason, I don't feel like anyone born in the 90s should be old enough to be driving, let alone having sex and being scandalous. I offically feel really old.

In response to the original idea -- yes, I hope GG is better about keeping things consistent time-wise and story-wise than The OC tended to.

If it makes you feel any better, Leighton Messner herself was born in 1986. With the exception of Taylor, the entire main cast was born in 1985/1986/1987. Feel any less old now?

I know it's dumb, but I still feel like those who were born in the mid-1980's are still the teenagers, even though we're not. I can't believe we're actually the twentysomethings now. I can't wrap my head around the fact that the 80's babies are the twentysomethings, while the 90's babies have taken us over as the teenagers.

I wonder if they're going to show Serena's 17th birthday, if it hasn't already happened yet. Watch it be this total movie magic kind of night.



Word. Josh, you hearing this, man? It was annoying how we never got a firm answer to how old Kiersten and Sandy were, and how the gang's age kept going down. First Marissa was 16 in the summer of 2003, meaning that she should have been born in 1987. But on her grave stone, it said 1988. Then they can't seem to pick a birthday for Ryan at all, and by the time he was turning 18, it looked absolutely ridicolous beyond belief that it had really taken him until season 3 to do so.

Ostensibly, I'm the same age as the characters but I definitely don't feel as if I am. It's way bizarre.

Whoa, so this was Blair's 17th birthday, right? So Blair is probably the oldest out of the gang, unless if we're just not going to see any of the other birthdays.

I think we know that Dan is already 17, because he says something to Vanessa about how when he told her he loved her, he was "only 16" (as if the emotional maturity gap between 16 and 17 is widely known to be huge). I don't know if we know about any of the other characters, though.

Thanksgiving episode is in two weeks, so I would say it's around November in GG's world too. That being said, if Blair's birthday is at the latter end of the year, wouldn't this make her one of the youngest?

Nah since they are Juniors in High School she's a little ahead of the curve.

High school juniors were typically born in 1991...so yeah, she's on the older side for 11th grade.

Well, if she's in her junior year and born in 1990, she's supposed to actually be in her senior year. Those born in 1991 are supposed to be in their junior year. So, Blair stayed back a year?

In most American schools, the cutoff is *not* January 1st. In my school district it was more like September 15th, though if you were born slightly later than that your parents were allowed to enroll you early if they so chose, but November would be pushing it. Generally, those born September 1990-August 1991 are Juniors this year.

In my school distict the cutoff date is December 1st, and it's up to the parents to decide when they want their child to start school.

Not exactly. I was born three days past the cut off date, which was Sept 1, 1990, so I'm a junior instead of a senior. So no, it doesn't mean Blair was held back.

Blair's birthday makes sense since I'm about to turn 17 next week and I was born in November 1990. I'm also a junior in high school so this makes Blair one of the older kids in her grade.

The whole 'I'm older than that actor/actress/ girl or boy band member" thing is seriously freaky! I'm still trying to get my head round the fact that my 'baby' sister (8.5 years between us), will be 18 in April!!! I'm nearly 26 and am starting to feel old and unsuccessful compared to all these pre-twenters who are wildly successful in their acting and/or singing careers!
And here's hoping that GG's timeline is more organised/logical than The OC's, but then again, that won't be hard to do!From what I've heard, OTH is pretty bad on this front & Grey's Anatomy has never even attempted any semblance of continuity, IMHO.

I posted this in the thread for this week's episode, but now I see it belongs here. When in the year did Serena sleep with Nate, when did she go away to boarding school, for how long was she gone, and when did she return? The whole time I had been assuming that she and Nate had sex during the summer after their freshman year, Serena subsequently fled to boarding school for all of sophomore year and was out of touch with the whole gang, and returned for the beginning of junior year. However, this episode showed Blair, Serena, and Nate all being friends last Thanksgiving, so that wouldn't work with the timeline I had in my head. So I'm not sure if my assumption was wrong or the writers just messed up. I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but now in this thread I see that The OC messed up the timeline (I never watched it).

There's been alot of discussion about this in the episode thread. I seem to remember in The Wild Brunch when Dan asks the concierge if he thinks serena will be back soon and he responded (paraphrased): well last time she left she was gone for six months but your welcome to wait". That makes me thing that Nate-Blair happened in March-Aprilish and she was gone for six months and then returned September-Octoberish. I can't be sure that he definitely said six but maybe i'll rewatch the episode and double check.

Continuity where?

The concierge did tell Dan that Serena was once gone for six months, so big gold star for Amester0120.

But....

At the very beginning of the show, Gossip Girl tells us that Serena is back after being gone for a year.

Now in the books, Serena returned from being at boarding school at the beginning of the new school year at CB. However, I can't find any reference to that being the case from the episodes: in fact, it looks more like Serena just rejoined her old class (remember that when Serena returned, Jenny had already talked to Blair at school, and gotten the job of designing the invites for the KotL party).

But but but.....

Yeah. No matter which way you twist it, she can't have been buddy buddies with N and B before thanksgiving, and be gone a year. So who's wrong? GG? All the characters? Or is this Exhibit A in the case against the writers?

We could chalk it up to hyperbole on Gossip Girl's part. If Serena was gone for 6-7 months, I can easily imagine that Gossip Girl would exaggerate that length of time into a "year."

To me the more damning evidence is the scene in the kitchen where Chuck attempts to blackmail Serena into sleeping with him:



The pilot takes place during the early fall, so if Serena skipped town in the late winter/early spring, Chuck's line about "last year" makes no sense.

There is an argument to be made that Serena and Nate slept together last year (like Chuck said) but that Serena didn't skip town until way after the fact, which would have meant that the flashbacks last night were post-cheating. Personally, I think that's even more of a contradiction of what we've been told; I'd always had the impression that Serena skipped town IMMEDIATELY following the wedding, what with Chuck making the connection and all of Serena's talk about not being able to face Blair.)

Probably they just decided to tweak the timeline a bit after the pilot was picked up, is all. (If this show does have a timeline; so far the evidence speaks to the contrary.)

In high school, my friends and I always go by school years instead of Calendar so that could be a possibility. I highly doubt it in this case, but what the concierge said also hit my mind. Since the Pilot though, they've changed a few details to set up the rest of the season perhaps they realized they wanted to go a different direction considering the gap between when they filmed the pilot and Wild Brunch... Chuck going from having both his parents together to just his dad for one.

How would this work out for a time line? Nate and Serena hooked up at the wedding December last year. Serena went to boarding school after that and came back at the end of the school year (hence the doorman saying she was gone for six months). She didn't stay home long because she went away on summer vacation with her mom and Eric. This explains why she didn't speak to Blair or any of the other characters during the summer. At the end of the summer she went back to boarding school to start the new school year and she came back when Eric attempted to commit suicide sometime in September/October so as far as Gossip Girl and the other characters are concerned she was gone for almost a year.

I don't think there's a family vacation in there. When Serena comes back in the beginning of the season, it's the first time she comes back since she left, considering everyones reactions. Had they been on vacation the whole summer, Lily would not have been as angry about her not being there.

I'm with wheatgerm on the counting school years thing. I did that all the time when I was in school. Also like someone else said GG is probably exaggerating when she says S has been "gone a year".

So, I'm thinking:
-Wedding and hook-up in march.
-6 months (including summer) hiding in boarding school
-Serena returns a few days into the semester in the fall

This makes B's dad's affair with the male model quite long before he decided to leave his marriage, but that makes sense in a way. If he has been a semi closeted gay man for all theses years (Elanor saying "Not this one"...) but stayed with Elanor, then it would require something out of the ordinary, for example someone he kept on seeing for a long time, for him to pick up and change his life.

Or did they actually say that the divorce was during the summer? Then just ignore the above part, since that timeline is set.

I'm still attached to the idea of Serena and Nate hooking up at a wedding in December. That would make most of the statements about Serena being gone for a year make sense and fall in line with the little bit of tension we saw between Nate and Serena in the Thanksgiving flashbacks. So for me:

Fall '05

+ Dan is invited to a birthday party where he meets and becomes infatuated with Serena. He writes a story about the experience. (10/08/05)

Summer and Fall '06

+ Vanessa moves to Vermont.
+ Blair is treated for an ED.

Winter '06

+ Serena and Nate hook up at the Shepherd wedding.
+ Serena leaves for boarding school after Christmas vacation. (Blair returns to school after winter break and Serena isn't there. She goes to Serena's home and Lily tells her that Serena is going to boarding school now.)

Spring '07

+ Blair's dad comes out and leaves her mother.
+ Blair writes to Serena, but doesn't send the letter.

Summer '07

+ Allison leaves Manhattan to focus on her art.
+ Erik is suffering from severe depression.
+ Serena spends her summer vacation abroad to avoid returning home.
+ Serena hooks up with Carter Baizen in Santorini.

Fall '07

+ Erik attempts suicide a few weeks into fall term.
+ Serena leaves boarding school and reenrolls at Constance to be with her brother.



There hasn't actually been a divorce yet. In 1x09, we learned that Eleanor got the divorce papers just before Thanksgiving and uninvited Harold because she couldn't face him.

Vis-a-vis Chuck's "last year" comment to Serena, I think it's probably just a little slip on his part. I'm in high school (actually, I'm supposed to be older than all the GG teens, which is freaky-deaky), and most high school kids define years in terms of school rather than calendar years. So it could still make sense that the Shepard wedding happened in the winter.

Can someone clear up the Rufus/Lily thing for me? He mentioned that he was in a forgotten band of the 90s and the music they played at the Rolling Stone event definitely sounded 90s to me. Were he and Lily hooking up then, or way before the band hit it big?

Well, considering Dan and Serena are 17, that means they must have been born in 1991. I know kids weren't in the picture when Rufus/Lilly were getting together, so I guess they were hooking up before the band hit it big. I get the feeling they were around Serena and Dan's ages when they were together, because Lilly's mom held her trust fund over her head to get her to leave Rufus. So, she had to have been younger than 21.

Okay, thanks!

The Rufus/Lily relationship really messes with the timeline as far as I can see.

In one of the earlier episodes, Rufus mentions Lily being at Lollapolozza, which was first held in the summer of 1991. But both Dan and Serena seem to have been born in 1991.


I'd assume they were young, but maybe not that young. Trust funds can be turned over at different ages- 18, 21, 25, and even 30 wouldn't be unheard of.

I was watching some deleted scenes on YouTube and came across this and it mentions K/Clous. Apparently he was the last boyfriend Lily dated before the show.

The only way we can *try* rationalize that one is that he was already with Allison by that point, and Lily was still part of that scene even though she had kids too. Have we ever gotten info on what Serena & Eric's father is like? Or if they even have the same father? They mentioned Lily was an absentee mother, and Allison had to sacrifice a lot while Rufus was on the road, so it *might* work, but I'll admit we're stretching things here.

The timeline of Lily's husbands/boyfriends is vague at best, and I think the deleted scene is from the Pilot (where Chuck was talking about his parents jointly owning The Palace, if I remember correctly) ... so I wouldn't take it as gospel.

As far as I recall Eric specifically mentions K/Claus-the-last-boyfriend/husband's German accent (in the deleted scene), so the boyfriend/husband who moved out right before Eric's attempted suicide has to be German-Klaus-with-a-K.

But in "Chuck in real life" Serena talks to Instyle about her mother's cokehead-husband (according to her either German-Klaus-with-a-K or Danish-Klaus-with-a-C), who was married to Lily around the time Serena was 11 years old. And earlier in the episode Serena tells Blair that her mother has never been married to Danish-Claus-with-a-C, so the cokehead-husband in question? Again: German-Klaus-with-a-K.

So: ???

(This is me "trying to bring logic to the robot-bear-sketch.")

I thought she just said one of her mom's husbands was a "raging cokehead". I don't remember her mentioning a specific one but I could be wrong.

After narrating the cokehead-story she says something like "I don't remember if it was Claus or Klaus; I could never tell them apart."

I think it's pretty safe to say after Serena's rant that Lily was still part of the party circuit well after having her kids.

It must have been before, since they say they were together twenty years ago, that is, 1987-8. Lincoln Hawk's greatest success must have come in the early 90s. By then Rufus must already have been married to Alison, and Lily must have been on her first marriage at least.

Personally, I just think it's Josh Schwartz jumping the gun on 90's nostalgia. My guess is that because he really injected a lot of the 80's nostalgia into the O.C., especially with Julie Cooper remininscing about White Snake and leather mini-skirts, he thought that the natural progression with this next show would be 90's nostalgia, and having the parents of the teenagers today be people who came of age in the 90's. So he's thrown in all these 90's references like Limelight and Lollapalooza for the parents.

The problem is, Rufus and Lily would have had to have some whirlwind courtship in 1990 at the latest for them to have had their respective kids in 1991. Therefore, they weren't college kids who were carefree in 1993 or so who really soaked up the culture- the alternative rock and the hip-hop, etc. And it just seems really off to try and paint Rufus and Lily as having had their coming of age in the 90's, because to be honest, I think it would have been more in the late 80's before they had their kids.