The Fall 2008 TV season has begun, and while there are many new and returning shows that look interesting, all I can think of is how much I miss The Gilmore Girls.
Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show centered around the mother-daughter duo of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and her namesake daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel) in the fictitious Stars Hollow, Connecticut, and ran for seven seasons (2000-2007). The writing was witty and densely packed with one-liners and countless pop culture and literary references. Stars Hollow was an idyllic hamlet filled with off-beat, quirky characters that could be charming and exasperating in equal measure. The dialogue was quick and, at times, as biting and razor-sharp as the old screwball comedies of the ’30s. But the heart of The Gilmore Girls was the relationship between Lorelai, a stylish and scrappy single-mom, and her brainy, bookish daughter, Rory. Much depth and angst was provided by the true Gilmore matriarch, Lorelei’s wealthy, imperial mother, Emily (Kelly Bishop). The acting of Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel and Kelly Bishop was also consistently overlooked (Entertainment Weekly often said they were outright snubbed) when the Golden Globes came around, which is a crime.
Lorelai and Rory had an intimate, enviable mother-daughter relationship. I tuned in every week to watch them eat more hamburgers and fries and consume more coffee than women as skinny as themselves could seriously manage (skinny women who actually eat, and aren’t obsessed with dieting, was a treat), while I turned a keen ear to the obscure and clever cultural references peppering their every conversation.
Why do I love it so much? In addition to the witty banter and endearing characters, it showed how a woman could be beautiful and brainy. And the Rory of the first five seasons was obsessed with books and reading and regularly name-dropped authors like Dawn Powell. Take, for example, this little scene in the pilot episode between Rory and Dean, who would become Rory’s first boyfriend:
From IMDb:
Dean: Uh, well, I’ve been watching you.
Rory: Watching me?
Dean: I mean, not in a creepy, like, “I’m watching you” sort of way. I just – I’ve noticed you.
Rory: Me?
Dean: Yeah.
Rory: When?
Dean: Every day. After school you come out and you sit under that tree there and you read. Last week it was Madame Bovary. This week it’s Moby Dick.
Rory: But why would you…
Dean: Because you’re nice to look at, and because you’ve got unbelievable concentration.
Rory: What?
Dean: Last Friday these two guys were tossing around a ball and one guy nailed the other right in the face. I mean, it was a mess, blood everywhere, the nurse came out, the place was in chaos, his girlfriend was all freaking out, and you just sat there and read. I mean, you never even looked up. I thought, “I have never seen anyone read so intensely before in my entire life. I have to meet that girl.”
Rory: Maybe I just didn’t look up because I’m unbelievably self-centered.
Dean: Maybe, but I doubt it.
The show did begin to falter for me when Rory traded books for boys, and being as the final season was not penned by Sherman-Palladino, it did not hold-up to its initial promise.
But there isn’t anything else out there (yet) to match or replace it for me. I imagine I will just have to start at the beginning all over again.
In the meantime, for anyone else suffering from Stars Hollow withdrawal, you can try some other excellent TV series that likewise feature solid writing and exceptional characters like Freaks and Geeks, Grey’s Anatomy, My So-Called Life, Six Feet Under, Undeclared, Weeds and The Wire. Or you can try some screwball comedies like The Lady Eve, His Girl Friday, The Thin Man or Bringing Up Baby.
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