Though “Gilmore Girls” was canceled after seven seasons in 2007, Netflix announced last year that they were going to produce a revival of the show, which became available to stream on Nov. 25.
“Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life” consists of four 90-minute episodes, each showing one season. The season starts with “Winter,” which starts toward the tail end of 2015, ad the revival continues through November 2016 in “Fall.”
Almost all of the main characters are back, including Lorelai (Lauren Graham), Rory (Alexis Bledel), Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) and Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop). Melissa McCarthy, despite a myriad of scheduling conflicts, was able to reprise her role as Sookie St. James, if only for a scene.
The only main character missing was patriarch Richard Gilmore, due to actor Edward Herman’s passing in 2014. However, Richard’s presence was felt all through the revival, and his passing was handled beautifully. All four episodes were dedicated to him.
Many who have watched the original show were not pleased by season seven or the series finale. Amy Sherman-Palladino — who created, directed and wrote most of the original show — had no involvement in the seventh season due to contractual issues, so fans never got to see the ending that Sherman-Palladino envisioned for the show since its conception.
The revival, however, is written and directed by Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel, the original writers of the show.
Unfortunately, my excitement as a huge fan of the show slowly ebbed away throughout the first two episodes. The dialogue that had once flowed so easily now seemed forced, as though the Palladinos as well as the actors forgot the voices of their characters.
One of the trademarks of the original show is the speed of the dialogue. There was plenty of fast talking, but it felt more like the writers thought, “They expect us to talk fast, so we’ll write a ton of dialogue so they can say it all really fast.”
The fluidity of speech that writer and actor alike had attained so easily in the early 2000s was all but gone.
Moreover, many of the choices made by the writers as to the goings-on of the past decade did not make sense based on the characters themselves. It felt as though they had frozen the characters so that very little had changed, and no one had grown at all.
In short, the first two episodes did not really feel like “Gilmore Girls.”
However, about halfway through “Summer,” the tone changed. The dialogue returned to the natural fast-paced charm it was known for, and my attention was regained. By the time I started “Fall,” it once more felt like “Gilmore Girls.”
The finale was tragically comedic, in the style of the original show. It tied up some things and introduced new futures for the characters. However, there were many plot points left unresolved, and the end of the finale introduced more questions than the entire episode answered.
Fans are now wondering if Netflix and the Palladinos are planning to produce another season to answer some of those questions. I personally doubt it, knowing that this was the ending Amy Sherman-Palladino had envisioned all along.
Setting aside my confusion at the ending, I would definitely recommend grabbing a coffee and watching “A Year In The Life” to anyone who watched the original series.