Maybe it has to do with maturity…maybe it has to do with raw emotion…or maybe it is something else entirely, but Gilmore Girls is one of the best shows I have ever seen.
The show has so much to offer, from it’s intelligent and witty writing to it’s relatable yet still unique characters. It’s a show that leaves me questioning, what took me so long? Why did I wait so long to watch the show, even after hearing a lot of positive feedback about the show from friends along the way? I honestly think it comes down to timing, it never seemed like a show I would want to watch or at least not alone, but there never seemed to be the right time. When the show originally aired, in October of 2000, I was in middle school in Tennessee and a dramedy(drama/comedy) about a mother and daughter living in Connecticut was the furthest thing from my interests at the time.
I was thirteen. I spent my time exploring the woods around my best friend’s house, learning what my musical tastes were, climbing trees in our townhome complex, enjoying the rest of the first full year I had spent at the same middle school. If I did watch TV, it was either cartoons, teen shows on Disney or Nickelodeon, or whatever my parents were watching like CSI and Survivor. I wasn’t yet seeking out any primetime TV shows, but some of the big ones wound up in my periphery from channel surfing, like Friends and Buffy. There could be many reasons as to why I never stumbled across Gilmore Girls twenty years ago, but I am so very glad I decided to watch it now.
Gilmore Girls is so much more than just a story about a mother and daughter living in New England. It’s about the relationship between a single mother in her thirties and her teenage daughter, and the relationships they cultivate with the people that surround them, whether that be familial relationships, friendships, or romantic relationships. And the chemistry between this particular cast sucks you right into the middle of their characters’ lives, like you’re living it all right alongside them. The mother daughter duo of Lorelai and Lorelai (aka Rory) Gilmore live in the small fictional town of Stars Hollow in Connecticut. They are best friends first, mother and daughter second. They live off of coffee and junk food (with some of the best metabolisms I have ever seen), and strive for the goal of getting Rory into Harvard. You quickly learn that Lorelai had Rory as a teenager herself, at the age of sixteen, and she proceeded to raise Rory on her own. Estranged from her parents, Lorelai found a new life amidst the quirky townsfolk of Stars Hollow. She worked her way up from a maid to the manager of the Independence Inn and carved out an independent but nice life for herself and her daughter.
I don’t want to give away too much more about the show, in case there are those of you out there that have not seen it but are very interested in it, like I was. But I will say this, this show is excellent at getting you to experience so many emotions. The number of times this show broke my heart, only to put a big bandaid on it and then break it all over again. There were a lot of tears and tissues. It was a roller coaster ride, like no other, that reminded me of the thrilling roller coasters of my youth. The highs were the beautiful snowy tops of mountains, the lows the deepest depressing valleys, with even plains of relief thrown in to give you a rest. I laughed, I cried, I gently smacked my partner, Jason, on the arm a lot. He watched it with me and was seated beside me on the couch for every single episode, and it was entirely his fault for getting me to watch this show and feel all of these feelings. I also will admit, I am very glad that he did. He watched the show live, when it was originally on TV, and was a fan of it then. He also watched the Netflix special from 2016 that marked nearly a decade since the last episode aired. Jason was one of the many from whom I had heard about it being a good show with great writing. It is a great show, with excellent writing.
I cannot recommend it more and urge everyone to watch it. While some of the technology gives the show away for being set in the early 2000s, it’s mainly just the cell phones and computers, aside from that the show holds up very well even twenty years later. It’s storylines and settings are fairly timeless for the modern era and don’t feel out of place in the slightest. You get sucked into the town of Stars Hollow and are left feeling the urge to move there, to live alongside such colorful characters as Kirk, the man with a thousand jobs; Miss Patty, the long since retired broadway star who teaches dance; Babette, the older neighbor with a heart of gold but no volume control; Taylor, the town mayor/selectman/grocery store owner/head of all activities that happen in Stars Hollow. That’s just to name a few and Stars Hollow is but one location you get introduced to in the show. Lorelai’s parents live in an affluent neighborhood near Hartford, New York City pops up throughout, as does Boston, and a few other places around Connecticut and New England. This show just offers so much.
I can’t think of anything else to say, that wouldn’t give too much away. I can just reiterate how much I loved this show, how sad I am to be through it now, having binged all seven seasons in what feels like such a short time. I guess that is something I can still discuss, how easy it is to watch the show. We were easily able to get through several a night, sometimes more on the weekend. The episodes were packed full of emotion and dialog, but seemed to fly by. The pacing of the show was excellent and left you wanting more each time an episode ended. One of the great things about having the entire series available to watch on Netflix, is that you don’t have that long wait between seasons that anyone who watched it live had to endure all those years ago. The cliff hangers had to wait just a day, sometimes less, and thankfully so. I don’t know if my poor heart could have taken the wait, with how much I had been hooked by the characters, the story, the show.
So do yourself a favor, pop some popcorn and grab yourself a drink, pull up Netflix on your TV, laptop, or phone, and let yourself get lost in Stars Hollow. You can thank me later.
