‘Gilmore Girls’ Almost Had a Spinoff With This Fan-Favorite Character

Gilmore Girls very nearly gave fans a Jess Mariano-centered spinoff. Those who were on Team Jess quickly fell for Luke’s troubled nephew and Rory’s best boyfriend. In 2003, fans were very close to getting even more Jess. It was reported that The WB ordered a spinoff that would see Milo Ventimiglia reprise his role as Jess. Just a month later, though, Variety reported that the network had canceled the series. The WB and Warner Bros. TV reportedly failed to come up with a financial way to produce the series. Even though it got a six-episode order, it was supposed to be shot entirely in Venice, California.

It’s not cheap to film a one-hour drama away from a soundstage, hence making the costs way too high and possibly even higher than Gilmore Girls. Last fall, Melrose Place alum Rob Estes, who appeared as Jess’ dad Jimmy Mariano for two episodes of The WB series, was a guest on Scott Patterson’s I Am All In podcast. Via Showbiz Cheatsheet, he went into what happened with the spinoff, admitting that they had shot the pilot, but “some of the scenes filtered into actual Gilmore Girls, not the spinoff. But it actually got picked up. It got picked up. I think they wanted to pick it up for nine. And if I recall, Amy wanted more episodes. She didn’t want to do it for whatever they had okayed. So she kind of went well, then we’re not going to do it.”

Furthermore, the intended backdoor pilot, which includes scenes that was going to be for the spinoff, which reportedly was going to be called Windward Circle, was the penultimate episode of Season 3, “Here Comes the Son.” In the episode, Jess heads out to Venice, where he meets his father’s girlfriend, her daughter, and a pack of dogs. While Jimmy hesitates at first to take him in, he later caves after finding out that Jess has nowhere else to go. The overall series would have then followed Jess living in California and befriending a group of skateboarders. Milo Ventimiglia came back in Season 4 to recur and was a guest star for Season 6. He also came back for the Netflix revival, .

Meanwhile, Alix Kermes, who was supposed to play Lily in the spinoff, told remarkist that it actually came down to Windward Circle and a little series called One Tree Hill, both of which were “bidding for the final time slot. If a different show didn’t get renewed or whatever, it was us or One Tree Hill. Well, we all know what happened; One Tree Hill got that time slot. But they had signed us for seven years.” While at the time they made it seem like the spinoff was going to be a big thing, especially since it sounds like The WB was betting on it as well, it sounds like there were a few different factors as to why it never went to series. But knowing that we could have gotten a Jess-centered spinoff just hurts.