Ritter only appeared on a single episode of the teen soap Gossip Girl, but she was initially set to do much more. She was a part of the Season 2 episode "Valley Girls," which was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spinoff of the same name. The series, set in the 1980s, was set to follow the younger version of Kelly Rutherford's Lily van der Woodsen, here played by Brittany Snow. Ritter's character was her sister, Carol Rhodes, an aspiring actress whom Lily leaves to go live with after running away from her parents.

Although fans responded well to the episode, it wasn't picked up to series due to The CW's tough line-up that year. Still, we can't help but wonder what could have been with a Ritter-starring, '80s-set Gossip Girl spinoff, especially considering the fates met by some of the other shows The CW ordered that season, which included the one-season wonder Melrose Place reboot and the Mischa Barton-starring The Beautiful Life, which got canceled after airing only two episodes. But hey, The CW did order The Vampire Diaries that season, so they weren't all failures, and Ritter ended up moving on to bigger and better things.