References to elements of 1980s popular culture were heavily accentuated in the episode, which the producers hoped would bridge the generation gap between the characters and audience.

After getting kicked out of boarding school, Lily runs away from her wealthy parents to live in the San Fernando Valley with her sister Carol Rhodes (Krysten Ritter), the black sheep of the family.

In the present, Lily's daughter Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) rebels against her mother and decides to stay in jail as a statement, while her classmates prepare for the Prom.

Carol, an aspiring actress, had rejected the Rhode's upscale life and moved a year earlier to the San Fernando Valley.

The spin-off television series would chronicle the life of Lily Rhodes while attending high school and living with Carol in 1980s Los Angeles.

However, they felt that The It Girl's world, centered on character Jenny Humphrey's stay at boarding school, was too small and insular to sustain a television series.

[2][4] In December 2009, Variety magazine reported that while the "Gossip Girl spinoff [was] still in the very early stages of development", CW had begun to consider making a backdoor pilot.

[5] On January 14, 2009, CW green-lit a backdoor pilot for an untitled spin-off series starring a young Lily van der Woodsen.

[12] A scene in which Lily conceives and carries out an "elaborate plan to kiss a boy, and then lie about it" in order to violate her school's honor code and be expelled, was cut from the final episode.

[15] Brittany Snow was the producers' top choice for young Lily Rhodes and was offered the role in early February 2009 without auditioning.

[16] Initially, the series' producers wanted to cast an undiscovered star in the role while Snow was interested in continuing her film career.

However, after viewing a reel featuring Snow's work ranging from Hairspray to Nip/Tuck, Savage and Schwartz found her "perfect" and "pulled out all the stops" to convince her to come back to TV.

"[1] On March 6, 2009, Entertainment Weekly reported that Cynthia Watros and Andrew McCarthy were in final talks to join the show as Lily's parents, thereby filling Valley Girls' last starring roles.

"[20] The styles featured were therefore constructed so that viewers would not be distracted from an emotional scene by characters wearing 1980s makeup, hairstyles, or shoulder pads.

She appears in a preppy, upper-crust riding outfit while associating with her rich parents, but changes into a dress more typical of the "underground punk-rock scene" after running away to the San Fernando Valley.

[23] Songs featured within "Valley Girls" were taken from both the Los Angeles punk rock scene and mainstream 1980s hits in order to represent the two worlds surrounding character Lily Rhodes.

[24] With the exception of Fountains of Wayne's "Prom Theme" (1999), every song featured within "Valley Girls" was released prior to or in 1983, the year in which Lily's flashbacks take place.

Rumors that the spin-off would not be picked up as a series began well before the pilot premiered due to the limited number of spots available on CW's fall line-up.

On May 7, 2009, Nikki Finke wrote on her blog, Deadline Hollywood, that despite enthusiasm of CW executives, "the show went from hot, to lukewarm, to 'fading but wouldn't count out', to now dead, according to my insiders.

TV Guide's Jennifer Sankowski enjoyed the episode and believed the producers had captured all aspects of popular 1980s teen culture well, but that "at times it felt like they were trying too hard, throwing everything and anything '80s at us" such as a montage of 1980s outfits worn by Lily and mentions of MTV videos, fanny packs, Rubik's Cube, and Jane Fonda workout videos.

"[31] Tim Stack of Entertainment Weekly "loved" the episode and complimented the casting choices, but agrees with Sankowski in that "if this ends up being an actual series, they need to dial down the '80s references a tad.

"[32] Kona Gallagher of Cinema Blend said the premise was interesting and that "[Valley Girls] has the potential to be a strong spinoff, and [she] hope[s] that CW decides to pick it up this fall.

"[33] Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times writes that he "especially liked the moxie of Brittany Snow as young Lily and Krysten Ritter ... as her sister, Carol.

She also believed that the confrontation between the Valley dwellers and the rich attendees of Keith's party was "clearly a giant, dance-friendly metaphor for Reaganomics and the woes of a trickle-down world.