Another Gilmore Revival? Hard Pass.

[katieraygun]

There’s a lot of talk lately about whether or not Gilmore Girls, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, should have a second revival. Long standing fans since first run say no, but the new fans who only discovered the show through streaming are ready and eager for another helping. So, why, of all things, has a Gilmore Girls redo been a hot take since 2016? It’s a split decision between old and new.

Let me lay it out for you. When you watch Gilmore Girls as a hardcore fan you don’t just take in the seasons once and shelve it for life. You watch it. And I mean WATCH it. Repeatedly. And we do. We break it down. We discuss character development on socials, our likenesses, psychological backgrounds of every character are all fair game. It’s a cult and we’re obsessed. I watched this show with my mom in syndication for years before her death, and now I revisit the series when I miss her. It’s like an old friend to all of us.

Thanks to Netflix, GG has been given and gifted to us all for many years which birthed a whole new generation of fans. So I, like many others my age, find it difficult to watch the Revival from 2016- A Year in the Life- cater to the younger generation of brand new fans and not to the community of fans who, at the time, spent 16 years indulging, buying DVDs, merchandise, WB tour stopping. Our history with the show was rendered meaningless because it was pandering to the younger demographic of newbies who have no real idea what is and is not in character for the Gilmores. The GG revival was just another fast pass for something to do that is just as easily forgotten as the rest of streaming goes on. It catered to the minds of the generation who has ever had to live without Netflix or Hulu, and not to the people that gave Gilmore Girls on Netflix such a rich second life in the first place. So, what happened in the revival that broke almost every rule of screenwriting? Money.

Character Delivery

First off, the beloved characters from the show were all turned into caricatures of themselves. By that I mean that the people we had grown used to, the established personalities and storylines we were invested in, were gone and replaced with over the top yet underwhelming versions of themselves who were doing things to far out of character, or for no reason at all, that it felt like a different show all together. ASP leaving after Season six left us all feeling a touch out of sorts. The new head writers and team had to basically come in from scratch and recreate the established version of these beloved townsfolk without letting on that the writers room was completely changed. Season seven did a fairly decent job for the most part, but life events such as Lorelai and Christopher getting married and then divorced, Paris still fighting to be a lawyer all of a sudden despite being pre-med all during Yale, and really all of Logan’s storylines seemed so out of place compared to the people we knew that season seven is often ignored. But it wasn’t enough of a change to ruin the characters as a whole. They took some missteps in season seven but it was still in the realm of GG, even if we didn't like it. It was all feasible stuff that could happen such as Luke punching Chris and the Knit-A-Thon. But the revival? It was basically an attempt to introduce viewers to the evil twin or B versions of the people we knew, an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes by thinking we wouldn't notice a complete 180* turn on Rory's life just because she's on screen again.

However, the revival managed to murder every single one. The amazing town of Stars Hollow became a comic strip of what it was in the series. Not only did it come across as petty and selfish that ASP insisted on doing most of the writing with her husband Daniel, which made the show become more 2D or one note, but as a team they completely disregarded any character growth from the final season because it wasn’t how they would have left it. They openly admitted to not watching season seven in preparation for AYitL, which meant that any appropriate character changes were for nothing. The duo resorted to late-90s sitcom jokes like fat shaming, sight gags and immaturity as comedy writing that just did not play out well. Rather than have the characters grow over the 9 years away they somehow all managed to regress in maturity. Every. Single. One. That left a real sour taste in fans’ collective mouths.

Breaking down some character storylines that were psychologically off; Rory a serial cheater? Sure, she had kissed a few extra boys and slept with a married Dean. So being the other woman is not fully out of place for Rory, but what was out of character for her was that she cheated on her boyfriend Paul and continually abused and neglected him for Logan then acted like it was Paul's fault. Girl, you’re not 19 anymore. It ain’t cute. Another problem with Rory was her job. Yes, it’s lifelike for a Yale Grad to not have everything in place by the time she’s in her 30s. But for Rory to come from a rich family with a richer than rich dad, a trust fund from Trix plus whatever her grandfather left her in his will on top of being a working reporter at least a little bit- why was she so broke and moving in with Lor and Luke? Why couldn’t she keep a job?  And why, as obsessively prepared as she always was in the series, did she go to a job interview in a red sundress, with no resume and no pitch ideas and then have the gall to be angry that she didn’t immediately have the job? For someone who can’t even find her underwear, Rory was Logan level cocky and it was ugly. The character of Rory was absolutely butchered to be a bratty, entitled, elitist adult acting like a child. She was more mature at 16 than 32.

Lorelai didn’t seem to grow up either. For some reason she and Luke weren’t married. Both of them stayed exactly the same. Luke’s inability to fully communicate battled Lor’s need for attention by any childish means necessary. She was just as awkwardly quippy as ever but in a way that was more manic and immature than the original series. I guess because when you’re 32 commenting on a love of pie it’s still silly. But at 50 it’s just kind of pathetic. Why could she not think of one nice thing to say about her father after his funeral? She can effortlessly recall trivia for decades but even one nice memory about her father escapes her? Not realistic. I do understand that there needed to be tension there but it would have been better achieved if Lor had said something that Emily didn’t agree with or maybe didn’t know about like Richard picking her up from camp or even how he pretended to not know that she climbed out the window when Emily set her up with that actuarial creep. That would have just as easily sparked tension about how ungrateful Lorelai is for everything but it would not have been a slap in the face to Richard, to the family and friends, and to us as fans that she came up empty. We all felt the grief of losing Edward Herrmann (who died on my birthday!) and to turn it into joke after joke took us all out of the story. When characters do something that jumps the shark like that, something that pulls you out of the story like the underdevelopment of a once established character then it’s exceptionally difficult to recover from.

And a minor note- what the shit was with all of the sexism and shaming of characters? “It’s Pat” stopped being funny three minutes after it appeared on SNL in 1990. It’s also tough to see Lor and Rory body shaming a man for no more than a cheap laugh- that part was not only questionable in general for the characters, but completely not with the modern times of shaming shamers that 2016 was all about. They are behind the times on what's funny or acceptable. And the abuse the town puts Kirk and Lulu through? What year is it really that the joke is that an entire town is against Kirk and Lulu having children if they want them? Lulu has mentioned kids, likes kids, and is a teacher. Lulu wants kids and we all know that even if it’s not a conversation we get to see. And Kirk would be a good father- he’s loving despite his weirdness, he would devote himself to that child. No other child would be doted upon more, I’m convinced. But instead the town pitches in to buy him a pig? And Taylor allows that to happen without a permit or proper pig zoning at Kirk’s mom’s house? They really wanted to make a joke of preventing a perfectly willing and capable family wanting children by having a town vote against their reproductive rights? Da Fuq? As a femenist I was appalled that they would make jokes about trying to take away someone’s rights to procreate against their will. As a fan of the show itself it really kind of threw shade at the entire town for their use of mob mentality for something so negative and personal to many. It was all out of place. Painfully so. Imagine how many viewers want children but can't have them and then they're watching Kirk be treated like he's a Kafka novel and somehow denied fatherhood by being bullied into not wanting it anymore? Yet Rory's knocked up, Lor thinks she wants a baby at 50, Paris pedals wombs like cotton candy and Sookies kids live on a farm in Iceland or whatever? It's like they hate kids or of the mind that having a kid ruins your life still. You can see it in the OG run but it was only made worse by constantly assaulting us with baby, baby, BABY all over the revival and how in every situation having a baby was a bad thing.

Jokes were too current

By saying it’s too current as a negative means that for 20 years we have been watching the OG series and it’s mostly aged well. But the revival? If someone picks it up in 20 years they won’t understand the constant pop culture references that are tossed in like blueberries in a (Sam) pancake. I realize the line is being drawn here because the OG series is nothing but pop culture references. But the difference is that in the series those references were peppered into the conversation as a way to relate one thing to another like a bridge or a tail to the conversation. In A Year they were haphazardly vomited in with lines like “I did not get Gooped” which will definitely not be a company that exists in the year 2040. The entire series script was nothing but time-reflective jokes like Kirk’s OOBER trash, three cell phones ,or Wild. It was all too much. It was bit after bit like bad standup and the comedian couldn't read the room. No substance. Nothing worth quoting in everyday conversation like we Java Junkies are apt to do in the OG. Nothing they tried worked but they are obsessed with themselves enough to keep forcing it down our throats. And the musical? The only song worth keeping in the full was Sutton Foster’s Unbreakable. Every other scene of the Stars Hollow Musical could have been cut down to five or ten second clips and it would have played better. The most unfunny jokes were elongated and repeated so often that it became a joke graveyard as Amy and Dan patted themselves on the back alone. It will not hold up through the test of time. It's too time specific while weirdly, at the same time, stuck in the 90s with its humor devices.

Missed Connections

Another reason fans are saying no to a second AYinL season is that the stuff we wanted to see wasn’t there and it can’t just be thrown into the next season casually to fill gaps. We were left with more questions than answers and it is unsettling when that happens. It’s bad writing. Why did they give Dean Jared’s life? Why did Logan go back to his dad’s company? Did Sookie have their third baby? And where is our explanation of Rory’s baby? Is it Logan’s, or Paris’s? And do we care? It seems a little self-indulgent for Amy to insist on those being the last words after all this time even though it no longer makes sense, dropped out of left field and never had a chance to resolve even the tiniest bit of fact. A cliffhanger is only good if you know the answer is coming. Otherwise it’s just there. had it been the end of season eight like she wanted then it'd be different because pregnant suddenly at 23 after a lifetime of being by the books, no time for breaks and scheduling her entire life, Rory knocked up randomly at 33 after a load of missteps where we watch her do nothing but fail just makes it all so sad. If it were OG series it would be called full circle. But a 33 year old being pregnant while living in her mom's house with no chance to raise the stakes- pathetic attempt to stay relevant to the scene. Nobody cares that she's pregnant at 33 and her life's a mess. There's no drama since she's already a drama queen. Clinging to those final words was a disservice to the characters and the timeline they build. They ignored all of their original character work from years ago in order to push their narrative a decade later and it failed.

An audience can tell if a storyline, a sentence, or a character is half-assed. It seems like the staff writers didn’t care that the characters were shallow and incomplete, it seemed like they thought we, their audience, were suddenly stupid. Not bothering to ask Melissa McCarthy to be in the show was one thing, but to waste the time you had with her by having her trip all over herself, offer no real explanations to her whereabouts or why she suddenly ditched her dreams and her partnership was another slap in the face.

Plus the dumbing down of April by having her lie about smoking pot to seem cool? Stupid. And the existence of Paul? Once again a terrible and cruel joke that lasted for far too long showing how little they want their characters to come off as caring and relatable. And when creating a new character of Berta to be Emily’s one and only ever live-in maid that she doesn’t fire? Why have her be played by the same actress that plays Gypsy? Now, I love Rose Abdoo for real, but she’s already Gypsy! Why confuse literally everybody by making her be Berta as well when any of the redundant carousel of cameos would have sufficed as Berta?

Thinly veiled cash grab

And nothing more. Again, they stated repeatedly that they did not watch season seven out of bitterness for not getting their way after season six with the contracts but they did know that things changed. It’s a disservice to us that they only wrote the show according to their own hangups and didn’t let the characters grow up from where they left off. The whole thing felt rushed and incomplete. They did not spend enough time writing and developing their characters or stories and thought we would be fooled by Goop, Superman jokes, Wookies, Lena Dunham references and Marie Kondo. I admit that the “no joy” bit was funny but like everything else, it went on for far too long in an attempt to wait out the clock. It honestly seemed like they only had two hours worth of material but had contracted this four part series and relied on as many bad jokes, cameos and pop culture references as possible to fill up time which in turn took them almost no time to hurriedly write and produce. Perhaps actually acknowledging season seven would have provided them with more fodder for writing rather than hoping that cheap shots would do the trick. Or hey, if you’re completely out of writing ideas for the show you created yourselves, you can always rely on a stupid Life and Death brigade stunt set to music to take away some of that stress even though it’s completely out of nowhere and completely forgettable. People love being infantilized. Cute.

In Closing

Do we, the OG Gilmore Girls fans, want a second revival? No. Because the tiny bits of chum left of our Girls after the travesty that was 2016’s showing was enough slaughter. I don’t think any of us could honestly stand to see a constant barrage of caffeine fueled Covid jokes, anti-vaxxers and flat Earthers, overdone mask tan lines on townsfolk or anything Kirk may be up to during the Pandemic with his 147 jobs.

Honestly, the secret bar, Luke and Lor’s secret night wedding and Michel’s life were the only things worth watching in the whole shit show. And all of that could have been done in a half hour, maybe an hour. Definitely not six. We sat back and literally watched our favorite characters get butchered, dragged through the immaturity mud and witness moments about death and child bearing being turned into insensitive and inappropriate jokes. I don't think we could sit through that monstrous mess again. Amy and Dan, if you want to make jokes out of women's rights, tragedy, the human body or politics- DON'T. Or at least do it through whatever new yet unlikable character Amazon Prime asks you to curate for them, not Gilmores.

[andromeda331]

Well said @katieraygun!

[grommit2]

Let's see:
1) Rory having the baby, but living back home? I don't see much of a new storyline there. Just lots of struggling experienced by all new moms. 
2) Lorelai and Luke married...umm...for how long before Lorelai collapses under the weight of her past broken relationships?
3) Sookie and Jackson, still married, with kids.  How much new story line could you squeeze out of that? Maybe Sookie gets discovered by a movie producer? Nah...probably too much to ask. 
4) Taylor still ruling Stars Hollow...and then what?  Runs for higher office?  I doubt it..it just does not fit with the GG stories.
5) Hmm...Jess comes back, more mature, less conflicted, and...umm...does what? Ooh, I know...he becomes a movie star, maybe about a race car driver who is really good at racing in the rain. Beyond that, I just do not see anything else.
6) Trust Fund kid Logan, now without a trust fund. Launches a company that, this time, is not cratered with law suits. Hey...the story could be that he comes back to Stars Hollow, sweeps Rory off her feet, adores her kid (which looks suspiciously like him, eh?).  But, then, he wants to run his San Francisco company on the west coast, but Rory, in a fit of Lorelai-conflicted complex, just cannot leave Stars Hollow. Doesn't even want to move to Hartford.  End of Logan story line.
7) Luke...oh Luke...decides he wants to try to be a major league baseball player...his long lost dream.  Despite his age, he proves he can still hit, field, throw.  He makes it to Triple A, gets traded to the LA Dodgers, gets called up to the big team.  But...has to leave Lorelai because the Dodgers play in LA.  Oy...end of the Luke story line.
8) Kirk?  Umm...his wife turns out to be a genius.  Writes novels in her spare time.  They sell big time.  They move to a big house in Malibu. Overlooking the ocean.  Life is good!
9) Gypsy?  Invents a car battery that can re-charge as it is running down the highway.  No need to plug in.  Sells the idea to Logan for giganto bucks.  Ends up with enough money to BUY Malibu.  Not the car...the town. 

 
 

[peacheslatour]

Brilliant, grommit2!

Quote

Honestly, the secret bar, Luke and Lor’s secret night wedding and Michel’s life were the only things worth watching in the whole shit show.

I agreed with everything you said until this part. Luke and Lorelai's wedding was a hideous mess. Way OTT and after becoming husband and wife Lorelai walks off arm in arm with .....Rory! Um, just NOPE.

[JustHereForFood]

On 8/18/2021 at 8:09 PM, katieraygun said:

And the abuse the town puts Kirk and Lulu through? What year is it really that the joke is that an entire town is against Kirk and Lulu having children if they want them? Lulu has mentioned kids, likes kids, and is a teacher. Lulu wants kids and we all know that even if it’s not a conversation we get to see. And Kirk would be a good father- he’s loving despite his weirdness, he would devote himself to that child. No other child would be doted upon more, I’m convinced. But instead the town pitches in to buy him a pig? And Taylor allows that to happen without a permit or proper pig zoning at Kirk’s mom’s house? They really wanted to make a joke of preventing a perfectly willing and capable family wanting children by having a town vote against their reproductive rights? Da Fuq? As a femenist I was appalled that they would make jokes about trying to take away someone’s rights to procreate against their will. As a fan of the show itself it really kind of threw shade at the entire town for their use of mob mentality for something so negative and personal to many. It was all out of place. Painfully so. Imagine how many viewers want children but can't have them and then they're watching Kirk be treated like he's a Kafka novel and somehow denied fatherhood by being bullied into not wanting it anymore? Yet Rory's knocked up, Lor thinks she wants a baby at 50, Paris pedals wombs like cotton candy and Sookies kids live on a farm in Iceland or whatever? It's like they hate kids or of the mind that having a kid ruins your life still. You can see it in the OG run but it was only made worse by constantly assaulting us with baby, baby, BABY all over the revival and how in every situation having a baby was a bad thing.

I hadn't thought about this at all, but thanks to pointing it out. It fits with my complaint about every child on the show (with just a few exceptions) having to be an accidental pregnancy, rather than planned.

[Taryn74]

On 8/18/2021 at 1:09 PM, katieraygun said:

There’s a lot of talk lately about whether or not Gilmore Girls, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, should have a second revival.

This shows that it was posted several days ago but somehow I missed it. SOOOO well said!!!

 

On 8/18/2021 at 1:09 PM, katieraygun said:

First off, the beloved characters from the show were all turned into caricatures of themselves.

The amazing town of Stars Hollow became a comic strip of what it was in the series.

This makes me so angry I start gritting my teeth just thinking about it.

[SJC]

17 hours ago, Taryn74 said:

This makes me so angry I start gritting my teeth just thinking about it.

I'm on the verge of that right now.  :(

[SJC]

I'll be very surprised if there ever is A Year In The Life part two. 

Here's a post I wrote recently in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Season 1:
"I hope with all of my heart that AYITL part 2 is written, that everything needed to do it falls into place EXCEPT for Alexis signing a contract, then I hope Lauren refuses to do it without her and everything falls apart and Netflix says, "forget it!"
*laughs wickedly*"

Edited August 25, 2021 by SJC