Gilmore Girls, 10 years on
WE bid goodbye to Stars Hollow, Connecticut (arguably the best fictional town on the planet) when Gilmore Girls, the American comedy drama TV series, ended its run after seven seasons in 2007.
The original series introduced the fast-talking, java-addicted single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her 16-year-old brainy daughter Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), along with a colourful cast of everyday folk and lovable lunatics who populate the quirky town.
The series centres on the mother-daughter relationship, with both behaving more like best friends.
The remaining characters were Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), Richard Gilmore (Edward Herrmann), Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia) Dean Forester (Jared Padelecki) and Sookie St James (Melissa McCarthy). These characters warmed our hearts with their witty personalities throughout the seven seasons.
All of them make a comeback in this revival. Unfortunately, the show ended with a lacklustre final season because it was the only season that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband-cum-executive producer Daniel Palladino were not involved in, due to contract disputes with the broadcasting company.
Because of the change, the season received mixed reviews from TV critics and fans alike. With no involvement from the Sherman-Palladino team, the show never got the emotional ending the creators had originally planned for. But early 2016, Netflix confirmed a revival of the show. Titled Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, the revival gave the original creators a chance to redo the ending.
Released last Nov 25, A Year In The Life is segmented into four movie-length episodes corresponding to the four seasons: Winter, spring, summer and fall.
Fans waited breathlessly for the comeback to see the lovable characters in action again. The seventh season ended with Rory embarking on a new exciting career, leaving her mother behind.
Years have passed, and while times have changed in the real world, it’s comforting to know that things in Stars Hollow remain the same.
Watching A Year In The Life is like soaking in a warm bath of nostalgia. It is like a welcome back party for the audience.
Most importantly, the fast-talking titular girls (Lorelei and Rory) are still as imperfect as they were before, only they are now older. But not necessarily wiser.
In the early episodes, Rory appears to be a jet-setting freelance writer who commutes between London and Stars Hollow. She has had some success with an article published in The New Yorker, but as the episodes progress, we learn that her career isn’t as fruitful as she had hoped it would be.
She hops from one city to another, crashing on friend’s couches as she chases down stories. When in London, she crashes at Logan Huntzberger’s place — “THE” Logan whose proposal she rejected at the end of season seven. The two have an affair, even though Logan is engaged and Rory has a longtime boyfriend Paul, whom she has been dating for two years. Talk about drama.
Meanwhile Lorelai’s life is on even keel but her relationship with Luke is still at a standstill. Living in the same town, co-habitating with her lover while running the Dragonfly Inn, the duo have yet to talk about marriage and children, until later episodes where they start scouting for surrogates.
And while things are as cheerful as ever in Stars Hollow, it’s not quite the same in Hartford where Emily, Rory’s grandmother, lives. Emily deals with grief over the death of her husband Richard. Herrmann, who played Richard, died of cancer in 2014.
The creators paid a beautiful tribute to the late actor through the show.
Rory’s former boyfriends — Dean and Jess- make appearances throughout the episodes.
Rory struggles in her career and eventually goes jobless, broke and moves back to Stars Hollow. She takes up a job working for the dying town newspaper, Stars Hollow Gazette, for free. Later, she comes up with an idea to write a book about her life with her mother titled (you guessed it) The Gilmore Girls.
Eventually, Lorelai and Luke get married and in the final scene of the series, Rory reveals the last four words that Sherman-Palladino had wanted to end the show with. Spoiler alert if you haven’t watched it yet: Rory tells her mother that she’s pregnant. With a stunned Lorelai, the screen goes black and the show’s theme song, Where You Lead, by Carole King starts playing.
The creators end the miniseries they way it was planned, even though it feels like it is 10 years late.Ten years ago, a jobless, broke and pregnant Rory would have been in her 20s. Rory, is now 32, the same age as Lorelai when the show started.
Now that Rory’s pregnant, what comes next? Could the father be Logan or Paul? The ending seems more like a cliffhanger. Will we see more episodes from the
Gilmore Girls then? I certainly hope so.
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is available for streaming on Netflix.