News of the Gilmore Girls revival spread like wildfire. That is, when my friend texted me about the news, I literally thought there had been a major fire or earthquake in the state of California. "Are you okay," was all it said. It took me a minute to register that he'd been talking about the reboot of my favorite television series and not a natural disaster.
Yes, Gilmore Girls is coming back, in the form of four 90-minute "mini-movies" on Netflix, according to reports from longtime Gilmore-insider Michael Ausiello. Initial fan reactions ranged from emotional to cautiously optimistic, but the consensus was overwhelmingly positive.
Sure. Arrested Development season four was largely panned as terrible. Sure, the Veronica Mars movie lit a fire in our hearts and then stomped it out like a fire-stomping troll. But Gilmore Girls is going to be different, guys. No, really. Here's why:
1. Amy Sherman-Palladino is back. According to TVLine.com and an exclusive scoop on the Gilmore Guys podcast, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Dan will be writing AND directing all four episodes. This limited series will give fans the closure they want in the voice that they love. I know it's strange asking a bunch of strangers on the internet to place their trust in anything these days, but you can trust Amy. Come trust her with me.
2. Season six wasn't that bad. Many die-hard fans of the show are quick to point out that, while season seven was glaringly absent Amy as showrunner, season six wasn't great, either -- and she was still in charge. The thing is, as much of a downer as it was to see Lorelai and Rory completely out of communication with each other for the first third of the season, that was really excellent drama. Depressing, but excellent. Rory, one of television's most consistently impulsive characters of all time, needed to stumble a little to reaffirm her self-worth and her commitment to becoming Christiane Amanpour. We're not going to talk about April because most people want to throw flaming darts at her face, and I hear you, but let it go. Season six still produced some of the coolest, weirdest, and most showstopping moments of the series.
3. Stars Hollow is a warm blanket. I've probably clocked more hours watching Gilmore Girls than I have interacting with my own mother, and I like her a lot. It's more of a sit-dram-com than a drama, impossible to categorize given its absurd townies and marathon dialogue. Everyone that I know who loves the show loves it because of its infinite rewatchability. Returning to Stars Hollow nearly a decade after we left it could seem tired for some, but the drama that fans really love -- the festivals, the townies, the diner, the inn -- that doesn't have an expiration date.
4. Different doesn't always mean bad.Gilmore Girls aired on The WB and The CW from 2000-2006. Episodes ran between 39-45 minutes during the original run, with constraints from both commercial breaks and Standards & Practices. When the show comes back on Netflix, the format will necessarily change. Like, what does 90 minutes of commercial-free Gilmore even look like? We're not going to get the answer to that question for a while, but it seems like a waste of time to hem and haw about all the ways it could suck. Especially considering that Orange is the New Black, the rightful heir to the Gilmore throne*, thrived in that exact environment. Gilmore Girls was never known for its dramatic act breaks, so deleting an unnecessary component of the initial structure and giving our girls some more time to gab about their lives doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.
![gg reunion.jpg]()
(photo via ATX Television Festival/Lauren Reynolds)
5. Everyone is doing so great! At the ATX Festival's Gilmore Girls reunion earlier this year, pretty much the entire original cast (sans Melissa McCarthy and the late-Ed Herrmann) were present, including all three of Rory's major suitors and a rocking, reunited Hep Alien. If this show could assemble fifteen cast members in Texas, eight years after the end of its initial run, without any bad blood or weirdness, and with still more people like Sean Gunn offering to call in from a film shoot on another continent, I'm sure we can avoid some of the weirdness that plagued shows like Arrested Development in their second lives. The real joy of this show is watching wonderful actors spit Amy's wonderful dialogue at each other in various quaint New England settings, and, damn it, that's what we're going to get.
*Oh, so Orange is the New Black and Gilmore Girls are sisters: OITNB showrunner Jenji Kohan wrote on season one of Gilmore. Women argue about bras. No one is sure whether to categorize it as drama or comedy. Pop culture references coming from every direction. A level of absurdism in an otherwise grounded environment. Same show!
Yes, Gilmore Girls is coming back, in the form of four 90-minute "mini-movies" on Netflix, according to reports from longtime Gilmore-insider Michael Ausiello. Initial fan reactions ranged from emotional to cautiously optimistic, but the consensus was overwhelmingly positive.
Yes I'm crying https://t.co/o9UYkertHu
-- Kevin T. Porter (@KevinTPorter) October 19, 2015No idea what they'll do with Gilmore Girls, but I trust ASP.
-- Mara Wilson (@MaraWritesStuff) October 20, 2015Glad #GilmoreGirls is being revived Netflix. I couldn't afford to spend more money on wigs acting out new episodes in my studio apartment.
-- Benjamin Siemon (@BenjaminJS) October 19, 2015Sure. Arrested Development season four was largely panned as terrible. Sure, the Veronica Mars movie lit a fire in our hearts and then stomped it out like a fire-stomping troll. But Gilmore Girls is going to be different, guys. No, really. Here's why:
1. Amy Sherman-Palladino is back. According to TVLine.com and an exclusive scoop on the Gilmore Guys podcast, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Dan will be writing AND directing all four episodes. This limited series will give fans the closure they want in the voice that they love. I know it's strange asking a bunch of strangers on the internet to place their trust in anything these days, but you can trust Amy. Come trust her with me.
2. Season six wasn't that bad. Many die-hard fans of the show are quick to point out that, while season seven was glaringly absent Amy as showrunner, season six wasn't great, either -- and she was still in charge. The thing is, as much of a downer as it was to see Lorelai and Rory completely out of communication with each other for the first third of the season, that was really excellent drama. Depressing, but excellent. Rory, one of television's most consistently impulsive characters of all time, needed to stumble a little to reaffirm her self-worth and her commitment to becoming Christiane Amanpour. We're not going to talk about April because most people want to throw flaming darts at her face, and I hear you, but let it go. Season six still produced some of the coolest, weirdest, and most showstopping moments of the series.
3. Stars Hollow is a warm blanket. I've probably clocked more hours watching Gilmore Girls than I have interacting with my own mother, and I like her a lot. It's more of a sit-dram-com than a drama, impossible to categorize given its absurd townies and marathon dialogue. Everyone that I know who loves the show loves it because of its infinite rewatchability. Returning to Stars Hollow nearly a decade after we left it could seem tired for some, but the drama that fans really love -- the festivals, the townies, the diner, the inn -- that doesn't have an expiration date.
4. Different doesn't always mean bad.Gilmore Girls aired on The WB and The CW from 2000-2006. Episodes ran between 39-45 minutes during the original run, with constraints from both commercial breaks and Standards & Practices. When the show comes back on Netflix, the format will necessarily change. Like, what does 90 minutes of commercial-free Gilmore even look like? We're not going to get the answer to that question for a while, but it seems like a waste of time to hem and haw about all the ways it could suck. Especially considering that Orange is the New Black, the rightful heir to the Gilmore throne*, thrived in that exact environment. Gilmore Girls was never known for its dramatic act breaks, so deleting an unnecessary component of the initial structure and giving our girls some more time to gab about their lives doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.
(photo via ATX Television Festival/Lauren Reynolds)5. Everyone is doing so great! At the ATX Festival's Gilmore Girls reunion earlier this year, pretty much the entire original cast (sans Melissa McCarthy and the late-Ed Herrmann) were present, including all three of Rory's major suitors and a rocking, reunited Hep Alien. If this show could assemble fifteen cast members in Texas, eight years after the end of its initial run, without any bad blood or weirdness, and with still more people like Sean Gunn offering to call in from a film shoot on another continent, I'm sure we can avoid some of the weirdness that plagued shows like Arrested Development in their second lives. The real joy of this show is watching wonderful actors spit Amy's wonderful dialogue at each other in various quaint New England settings, and, damn it, that's what we're going to get.
*Oh, so Orange is the New Black and Gilmore Girls are sisters: OITNB showrunner Jenji Kohan wrote on season one of Gilmore. Women argue about bras. No one is sure whether to categorize it as drama or comedy. Pop culture references coming from every direction. A level of absurdism in an otherwise grounded environment. Same show!