One is the Loneliest Number: Unpopular GG Opinions

[Guest]

I think Lorelai was hypocritical and her problem was less with money and more with her parents.  She wanted the benefits of money and acted like one dinner a week was an unreasonable thing to tolerate to get those benefits. For all she wanted to be a self-made woman, she always had the trump card of rich family to bail her out when she really needed it.  

[Melancholy]

I agree. Lorelai's real problem was the rich life epitomized by Richard and Emily- old money with expectations to adhere a certain etiquette and maintain a prim and proper lifestyle with tennis and teas and a specific dinner hour and constantly displaying that wealth so you don't have the option of mixing it up with the plebs. She did like the nice things that money can buy- Jimmy Choos, Martha's Vineyard mansions, grandiose tailgates. I think it makes sense that Lorelai liked money to do what she's always done- make the world her own playground for every whim but on a grander scale. 

The hypocrisy is really acute when it comes to Logan. Who is Lorelai to jeer to Sookie for Rory picking an "over coiffed, over privileged young man" or to have contempt for Daddy bankrolling Life and Death Brigade stunts for guys that never worked a day in their life when Lorelai marries a guy who's still in that zone as he nears 40. 

Edited April 28, 2017 by Melancholy

[Kohola3]

Here, here!  Well put!

[elang4]

My UO is that I actually liked Lucy and Olivia. I thought it was definitely realistic that Rory would make friends with them especially after Logan went to London. I kind of wished we'd seen more of them. I liked that Rory took them to Stars Hollow as well. :)

[hippielamb]

On 4/28/2017 at 9:08 AM, deaja said:

I think Lorelai was hypocritical and her problem was less with money and more with her parents.  She wanted the benefits of money and acted like one dinner a week was an unreasonable thing to tolerate to get those benefits. For all she wanted to be a self-made woman, she always had the trump card of rich family to bail her out when she really needed it.  

Agreed. Lorelai had no problem with Jason taking her to the fancy restaurant or his lifestyle. Same with Chris. It's only when it involves her parents does she equate it with being horrible. 

 

On 4/29/2017 at 4:19 AM, elang4 said:

My UO is that I actually liked Lucy and Olivia. I thought it was definitely realistic that Rory would make friends with them especially after Logan went to London. I kind of wished we'd seen more of them. I liked that Rory took them to Stars Hollow as well. :)

I liked them too! Rory finally had friends! We saw her open up to them and show some of her vulnerabilities, which I loved. She finally had someone to hang out with and just have fun. I know she gets that from Lorelai (and I love that aspect of their relationship) but having friends her own age was good for Rory, imo. 

I know fans love Paris but it amazes me that Rory kept her as anything but an acquaintance after some of her stunts. 

[junienmomo]

8 hours ago, hippielamb said:

Agreed. Lorelai had no problem with Jason taking her to the fancy restaurant or his lifestyle. Same with Chris. It's only when it involves her parents does she equate it with being horrible. 

I think her dating personna was to go along with whatever the guy decided.  Not even fancy food could save her date with Peyton Saunders, though. She preferred her chosen simpler lifestyle in general. As long as it contained plenty of designer clothes and Jimmy Choo shoes, regardless of how many times others bailed her out financially. So, basically, hypocrisy with respect to money was there. 

[Melancholy]

I liked the idea of Lucy and Olivia. All for giving Rory more normal Yale friends, in both temperament and class, than the ones she ran with in the past. However, the execution sucked. They were really grating. And downright manic for supposedly normal girls. I came to like Krysten Ritter on Breaking Bad and Jessica Jones but she really sticks out as miscast in this supposedly "easy" low demand bit part. The actress who played Olivia was better. Adding contrived Marty drama so early in the relationship but also simultaneously as the series was about to end made the relationship more off putting because it ended up defined by weird inorganic conflict. 

Upthread, I think I agree with @shron17 that I like AYITL and S6 more than S7. I also like AYITL more than S6, although S6 benefits from more eps. 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Melancholy

[clack]

A really UO : they should have dumped Paris after season 3. It's a contrivance that Rory's high school frenemy winds up at the same highly selective university, never mind becoming her college roommate.

I know, Paris is a great character. Come up with a new one just as vivid for Rory to interact with at Yale. I mean, when ASP wrote created other tv shows post GG, she had to invent new characters, right? 

And if we absolutely had to keep Paris as a character, just have her interact with Rory as a newspaper colleague.  If they did, by coincidence, end up at the same university, it would at least be plausible that the would both chose to work at the school paper.

[Katy M]

7 minutes ago, clack said:

A really UO : they should have dumped Paris after season 3. It's a contrivance that Rory's high school frenemy winds up at the same highly selective university, never mind becoming her college roommate.

I know, Paris is a great character. Come up with a new one just as vivid for Rory to interact with at Yale. I mean, when ASP wrote created other tv shows post GG, she had to invent new characters, right? 

And if we absolutely had to keep Paris as a character, just have her interact with Rory as a newspaper colleague.  If they did, by coincidence, end up at the same university, it would at least be plausible that the would both chose to work at the school paper.

I find it way less contrived that two people from a highly competititive private school in New England would both go to the same Ivy League school, then I do that the whole gangs of both 90210 and Boy Meets World went to the same local colleges.  Especially since each of those gangs had a student who could/should have been going to an Ivy League school, or at least somewhere better than they ended up going.  And, I don't find it at all odd that someone as socially awkward as Paris would request to room with someone she knew.

[Chewy101]

5 hours ago, Katy M said:

 

5 hours ago, clack said:

A really UO : they should have dumped Paris after season 3. It's a contrivance that Rory's high school frenemy winds up at the same highly selective university, never mind becoming her college roommate.

I know, Paris is a great character. Come up with a new one just as vivid for Rory to interact with at Yale. I mean, when ASP wrote created other tv shows post GG, she had to invent new characters, right? 

And if we absolutely had to keep Paris as a character, just have her interact with Rory as a newspaper colleague.  If they did, by coincidence, end up at the same university, it would at least be plausible that the would both chose to work at the school paper.

I find it way less contrived that two people from a highly competititive private school in New England would both go to the same Ivy League school, then I do that the whole gangs of both 90210 and Boy Meets World went to the same local colleges.  Especially since each of those gangs had a student who could/should have been going to an Ivy League school, or at least somewhere better than they ended up going.  And, I don't find it at all odd that someone as socially awkward as Paris would request to room with someone she knew.

 

Interesting. I remember when Willow rejected the Ivy league to stay with her friends on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and being torn between thinking Willow was throwing her life away and yay! More character Willow! 

Very little about Gilmore Girls was realistic to me. That entire town was ridiculous. It's TV. Had the two main female characters been likeable to me, I would have happily gobbled up everything else.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Katy M said:

I find it way less contrived that two people from a highly competititive private school in New England would both go to the same Ivy League school, then I do that the whole gangs of both 90210 and Boy Meets World went to the same local colleges.  Especially since each of those gangs had a student who could/should have been going to an Ivy League school, or at least somewhere better than they ended up going.  And, I don't find it at all odd that someone as socially awkward as Paris would request to room with someone she knew.

The thing that bugged me the most (and this may have been more of a nitpick than UO, but maybe it's both) is that her dad was able to get room assignments switched at Yale with a phone call. Yet, even as a legacy, he wasn't powerful enough to even get her into Harvard?  I  know she bombed her entrance interview, but still.

[Katy M]

17 minutes ago, deaja said:

The thing that bugged me the most (and this may have been more of a nitpick than UO, but maybe it's both) is that her dad was able to get room assignments switched at Yale with a phone call. Yet, even as a legacy, he wasn't powerful enough to even get her into Harvard?  I  know she bombed her entrance interview, but still.

It's not that hard to get room assignments switched, assuming you do it early enough.  I honestly don't remember the conversation well enough. If she says her dad called two days ago, then, no, it probably wouldn't happen.  But, the college doesn't really care that much which dorm or room you're in.  If Paris says she and her BFF want to be in the same suite, they would go ahead and make that change, because if people are happy with their room assignments/roommates, that just makes the admins' lives that much easier.

[scarynikki12]

1 hour ago, deaja said:

The thing that bugged me the most (and this may have been more of a nitpick than UO, but maybe it's both) is that her dad was able to get room assignments switched at Yale with a phone call. Yet, even as a legacy, he wasn't powerful enough to even get her into Harvard?  I  know she bombed her entrance interview, but still.

That's always annoyed me.  Paris is a Harvard legacy going back, what, nine or ten generations (assuming what she told Rory in season 1 was accurate)?  Her family was wealthy, she kicked ass academically and was involved in the kinds of extracurricular activities that look fantastic on applications.  Yet she didn't get in.  Ok, let's say that her interview was so awful that they recommended she be denied.  We're still expected to believe that her father, a wealthy Harvard alum who is the son, grandson, great-grandson, etc, of Harvard alums, can't make a call and override that decision?  We live in a world where wealthy Ivy League alums successfully get their kids into their alma maters even if they don't quite qualify with donations or calls, yet Harvard was willing to break the Geller chain (and stop the alumni money) because Paris had a bad interview?  I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. 

[Katy M]

3 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

That's always annoyed me.  Paris is a Harvard legacy going back, what, nine or ten generations (assuming what she told Rory in season 1 was accurate)?  Her family was wealthy, she kicked ass academically and was involved in the kinds of extracurricular activities that look fantastic on applications.  Yet she didn't get in.  Ok, let's say that her interview was so awful that they recommended she be denied.  We're still expected to believe that her father, a wealthy Harvard alum who is the son, grandson, great-grandson, etc, of Harvard alums, can't make a call and override that decision?  We live in a world where wealthy Ivy League alums successfully get their kids into their alma maters even if they don't quite qualify with donations or calls, yet Harvard was willing to break the Geller chain (and stop the alumni money) because Paris had a bad interview?  I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. 

She didn't have a "bad interview."  She yelled at the interviewer and got quite belligerent.  If they thought she was nuts enough to be dangerous, the potential lawsuits from other students would have more than offset her father's contributions.

[Deputy Deputy CoS]

30 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

That's always annoyed me.  Paris is a Harvard legacy going back, what, nine or ten generations (assuming what she told Rory in season 1 was accurate)?  Her family was wealthy, she kicked ass academically and was involved in the kinds of extracurricular activities that look fantastic on applications.  Yet she didn't get in.  Ok, let's say that her interview was so awful that they recommended she be denied.  We're still expected to believe that her father, a wealthy Harvard alum who is the son, grandson, great-grandson, etc, of Harvard alums, can't make a call and override that decision?  We live in a world where wealthy Ivy League alums successfully get their kids into their alma maters even if they don't quite qualify with donations or calls, yet Harvard was willing to break the Geller chain (and stop the alumni money) because Paris had a bad interview?  I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. 

She didn't get in because she show wanted to keep the character and since Rory was going to Yale .......

[Melancholy]

The Paris stuff really made sense to me. There's no absolute rule on the influence of being a legacy. Legacy is just influence. One statistic said legacies are admitted to Harvard at a rate of just 30 percent. And Paris was memorably "probably chain emailed across the admissions office" insufferable in her interview. She provoked an immediate "We can't let this asshole into our school" reaction. That's a far more powerful reason for distaste than having a below par GPA and standardized test score   

The fact that she got to room with Rory also made sense. Being admitted to the Ivy League university is a big ask. But no administrators really give a fuck about who rooms with whom. It's the easiest request to grant at college to replace a random roommate pairing with a roommate request.  

Going upthread. It made sense that Paris would go to Yale. It's commonly regarded as the top two schools on the east coast- and Harvard rejected Paris. Upthread, Willow Rosenberg ending up at UC Sunnydale also made sense. Willow wanted to keep fighting evil and saving the world at Ground Zero and to continue helping Buffy at her slayer post. To do that, she could only go to UC Sunnydale. 

Theres definitely teen shows that unbelievably contrive where the characters wind up at college but I don't watch those. 

Edited May 2, 2017 by Melancholy

[txhorns79]

Quote

And Paris was memorably "probably chain emailed across the admissions office" insufferable in her interview. She provoked an immediate "We can't let this asshole into our school" reaction. That's a far more powerful reason for distaste than having a below par GPA and standardized test score   

I didn't view Paris as behaving like an asshole.  I viewed her as behaving completely unhinged.  I think Paris herself said that she sounded like a meth addict during the interview.  It made sense she was going to be rejected because she sounded insane.  

[Taryn74]

I have a friend whose daughter is a third generation legacy for a prominent school (not an Ivy League, I don't think, but I'm not really up on all of them lol) has absolutely top grades, has traveled the world both for pleasure and doing charity work, has more qualifications than Paris Gellar could dream of, and is an all around lovely person (so no off the wall meth addict interview, heh) . . . and she was wait-listed to her legacy school.  The school even called her parents to warn them before she got the wait-listed notification because they knew it was going to be a blow.  I don't know what schools look at, exactly, but yeah.  It can definitely happen.

[Melancholy]

17 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I didn't view Paris as behaving like an asshole.  I viewed her as behaving completely unhinged.  I think Paris herself said that she sounded like a meth addict during the interview.  It made sense she was going to be rejected because she sounded insane.  

She sounded unhinged AND assholic. Yelling at the interviewer in her harsh, bossy way sounds assholic. Paris also said "It's like Harvard knew me"- because Paris was rejected partly because of her actual personality. 

[Kohola3]

26 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I think Paris herself said that she sounded like a meth addict during the interview.  It made sense she was going to be rejected because she sounded insane.  

So she must have completely changed her persona for the Yale interview?  That's another thing that didn't make sense.

[Katy M]

1 minute ago, Kohola3 said:

So she must have completely changed her persona for the Yale interview?  That's another thing that didn't make sense.

She didn't have to completely change her persona.  She just had to manage to not yell.  If she had that interview before her Harvard interview, she wouldn't have cared about it as much, because Harvard was where she wanted to/thought she was going.  So, she would have been less passionate, and therefore, ironically, more likely to not be off-putting and get in.  If she had the interview after she found out she didn't get into Harvard, well, even Paris can learn from her mistakes.

[Melancholy]

Plus, we've seen Paris flip between appearing deranged or appearing socially high functioning. Paris is a type that's smart enough to know what pleases adults but is so impatient and easily set off by any stressor or aggravation. I can buy that something, internal and/or external, was upsetting her at the Harvard interview but she was in a better place for the Yale interview and could be the more adult-friendly Paris who correctly sucked up to teachers or buddied up to Richard Gilmore. 

Edited May 2, 2017 by Melancholy

[clack]

Yale doesn't allow incoming freshman to request specific people as their roommates.

I went to an Ivy League university (not Yale), and I as far as I know all Ivy League schools assign residence halls and roommates without consulting the incoming freshmen ( who would want to take on that headache?). You get notified in July where you are to be living, and who your roommates are.

I'm not saying that it is absolutely impossible that somehow Paris winds up as Rory's roommate without Rory knowing beforehand, I'm just saying that it is highly contrived. Another silly contrivance would be Richard -- a very minor businessman (a mere VP!) without an advanced degree -- somehow getting a teaching job at Yale.

All of it just lazy writing.

[Kohola3]

4 minutes ago, clack said:

All of it just lazy writing.

90% of the series was in my opinion.  Not that I don't watch some of it almost every day.  

[Katy M]

16 minutes ago, clack said:

I went to an Ivy League university (not Yale), and I as far as I know all Ivy League schools assign residence halls and roommates without consulting the incoming freshmen ( who would want to take on that headache?). You get notified in July where you are to be living, and who your roommates are.

I'm not saying that it is absolutely impossible that somehow Paris winds up as Rory's roommate without Rory knowing beforehand, I'm just saying that it is highly contrived. Another silly contrivance would be Richard -- a very minor businessman (a mere VP!) without an advanced degree -- somehow getting a teaching job at Yale.

Well, I'll admit I didn't go to an Ivy League school, but the college I went to did allow freshmen  to request roommates (I think they preferred it actually, because there was quite a bit of drama going on between randomly matched roomies) and did have local business people come in to teach the odd class here and there.  I don't know why it would be considered a headache to have people actually want to room with each other but maybe Ivy League schools (if you are, indeed, correct about all of them having rules against such requests) are staffed by inferior administrators, or administrators on power trips.

[clack]

Just to do the math : a top feeder school like Chilton would have 30% of its graduates go on to an Ivy League school. There are 8 Ivy League universities. Rory's graduating class numbered 45.

That means that 14 or so members of Rory's class would have gone on to one of 8 universities. Yale being in the same state as Chilton, let's say that as many as 4 members of Rory's class went on to Yale. Yale isn't going to institute a "choose your roommate" policy to accommodate 4 people out of an incoming class of 1500 or so, almost all of who are not going to know each other beforehand.

It's not like a state school, which might have a hundred or so incoming freshman arriving from the same high school. In that case, allowing high school friends to room with each other as freshman makes sense.

[blueray]

I went to a small to medium size state school but I believe people could request their roommate freshman year, though I don't anyone that did. But it was a much smaller school then Yale and only had 5 dorm buildings.

As for the Paris's father not getting her "into" Harvard,  I feel like it has to do with Paris pride. Paris would never accepted that, as she worked her ass off to get in and clearly they didn't want her. She would have felt that she didn't deserve to be there. I agree that her Yale interview probably was first. Paris wasn't all that excited about it, so she just showed up for the practice of the real thing and ironically did a great job.

Edited May 2, 2017 by blueray

[JayInChicago]

I would hope if a college allowed one party to request being freshman roommates with another that they would check with the second party! Otherwise wind up with stalkers and bullies rooming with their targets. Yuck.

my first college didn't allow freshman roommate requests because they wanted people to meet new people. The college experience and all.

[Katy M]

36 minutes ago, JayInChicago said:

I would hope if a college allowed one party to request being freshman roommates with another that they would check with the second party! Otherwise wind up with stalkers and bullies rooming with their targets. Yuck.

my first college didn't allow freshman roommate requests because they wanted people to meet new people. The college experience and all.

Yes, actually IIRC, you both had to request. But, still of everything that happens on TV, I don't see Paris requesting, and getting, the roommate of her choice to be OTT crazy or "lazy" writing.

[Guest]

I think that's why her dad had to pull strings- Rory knew who her roommate would be, and it wasn't Paris. 

[hippielamb]

On 5/1/2017 at 7:34 AM, Melancholy said:

I liked the idea of Lucy and Olivia. All for giving Rory more normal Yale friends, in both temperament and class, than the ones she ran with in the past. However, the execution sucked. They were really grating. And downright manic for supposedly normal girls. I came to like Krysten Ritter on Breaking Bad and Jessica Jones but she really sticks out as miscast in this supposedly "easy" low demand bit part. The actress who played Olivia was better. Adding contrived Marty drama so early in the relationship but also simultaneously as the series was about to end made the relationship more off putting because it ended up defined by weird inorganic conflict. 

Upthread, I think I agree with @shron17 that I like AYITL and S6 more than S7. I also like AYITL more than S6, although S6 benefits from more eps. 

I liked Olivia better too. I didn't even recognize Krysten Ritter when she was on Breaking Bad, and I can usually spot a GG actor right away. I am watching Transparent now and I spotted one of the characters as the psychologist who gave Lorelai therapy in her car. 

On 5/1/2017 at 7:29 PM, clack said:

A really UO : they should have dumped Paris after season 3. It's a contrivance that Rory's high school frenemy winds up at the same highly selective university, never mind becoming her college roommate.

I know, Paris is a great character. Come up with a new one just as vivid for Rory to interact with at Yale. I mean, when ASP wrote created other tv shows post GG, she had to invent new characters, right? 

And if we absolutely had to keep Paris as a character, just have her interact with Rory as a newspaper colleague.  If they did, by coincidence, end up at the same university, it would at least be plausible that the would both chose to work at the school paper.

You're not alone. I think they kept her around because they liked the actress (and so do I) and Paris became a character that some fans love. I think Rory should have run the other way and not tried to forge a friendship with Paris. If a classmate did to me what Paris did to Rory during the Chilton years, I'd stop associating with them. 

On 5/2/2017 at 5:19 PM, JayInChicago said:

I would hope if a college allowed one party to request being freshman roommates with another that they would check with the second party! Otherwise wind up with stalkers and bullies rooming with their targets. Yuck.

my first college didn't allow freshman roommate requests because they wanted people to meet new people. The college experience and all.

Yes, I agree. My eldest was a college freshman a few years ago and they had rules about not rooming with friends. They purposely put strangers together so kids can meet and know other people the first year and not stay in a cocoon. Which you could argue is exactly what Rory did. 

[Melancholy]

19 minutes ago, hippielamb said:

I liked Olivia better too. I didn't even recognize Krysten Ritter when she was on Breaking Bad, and I can usually spot a GG actor right away. I am watching Transparent now and I spotted one of the characters as the psychologist who gave Lorelai therapy in her car. 

That actress, Melora Hardin, is so talented. I had no trouble connecting the shrink on GG to her other character, Jan Levinson on The Office. Two very different personalities but a similar enough preppy look. She was one of the funniest, memorable recurring characters on The Office. However, I had trouble connecting the same actress to her other character, butch lesbian Tammy Cashman on Transparent. However she was great as a totally different character in Tammy- hilarious, very sympathetic as more Pfeifferman-family collateral damage even though she definitely has her own insufferable bizarre side contributing to the problems. 

I can't get over that I hated Zack on Gilmore Girls. And I hated Terri in True Blood. However knowing that Todd Lowe played BOTH of them, convinces me that Todd Lowe is a MAGNIFICENT actor.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Melancholy

[scarynikki12]

I think this one is neutral among fans but still qualifies as unpopular since the show went the other way but I wish Rory had gone to Harvard.  I don't know if they made the decision for her to go to Yale in season 3 when they could feel confident the show was coming back or if it was always meant to be a bait-and-switch type of story since season 1 had Trix getting outraged at the thought of Rory not following in Richard's footsteps.  All I know is that Rory had spent the majority of her life planning to attend that school, went to Chilton with the express purpose of making that dream a reality, loved the impromptu campus visit with Lorelai, and everyone she knew was aware of this plan.  She didn't seem to love Yale any more than Harvard when they visited in season 3.  If anything, she seemed fairly neutral about it.  She liked the art museum a lot but didn't mention anything else about the campus.  It didn't knock her socks off like Harvard did.  I do think that, outside of the show wanting her to be as close to Stars Hollow as possible, Rory picked Yale for two reasons: to stay close to home and make Richard happy. 

Back to my UO.  A lot of the Rory stories they came up with not only would have worked just fine at Harvard but also may have worked better.  The truck and mattress shenanigans of the Yale move in day wouldn't have worked but things like Rory feeling homesick, struggling academically, having trouble making new friends, spending more time with Chris, shifting into a entitled brat, etc., would all have just as much, if not more, resonance if Rory couldn't get home to Lorelai as easily. 

[junienmomo]

21 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

A lot of the Rory stories they came up with not only would have worked just fine at Harvard but also may have worked better.  The truck and mattress shenanigans of the Yale move in day wouldn't have worked but things like Rory feeling homesick, struggling academically, having trouble making new friends, spending more time with Chris, shifting into a entitled brat, etc., would all have just as much, if not more, resonance if Rory couldn't get home to Lorelai as easily. 

Ooh, good insights. The Yale thing came down to forcing Lorelai to face the crossover of Rory into Hartford society. That kept Lorelai at the heart of the story instead of Rory and her growing up.

[Deputy Deputy CoS]

I am glad she went to Yale because it showed Rory becoming her own person. It was Lorelai's wish for Rory to attend Harvard. Rory wanted that too until she was exposed to other possibilities. One of the things the show was subtle about was that Rory followed in Lorelai's footsteps until she is given choices, then she forges her own way. Lorelai's response is always interesting. If she only knew how alike her mother she reacts to Rory not doing exactly what she envision for her.

Plus, I'll always cherish the looks on Emily and Richards faces when they found out she was going to Yale. 

[Melancholy]

I also thought it made sense that Rory went to Yale. It's a better fit, just considering the schools. The general adage is that Harvard is more competitive and focuses on developing concrete marketable skills while Yale is more ivory-towered and focused on the study itself. Harvard interacts with the big city of Boston. Yale treats Hartford as just a college town. Rory fits Yale more, especially with her family close by. I see why Yale would win Rory's pro/con list even if there wasn't even an entry on the list for the grandparents which I can picture since Lorelai was also writing the list. As a matter of logistics, I don't think you can write the show without Rory having tons of face to face interactions with her mother and grandparents every episode and less significant but still interactions with Lane and the town on a fairly consistent basis.  

[Guest]

As far as plot contrivances go, this one never bothered me.  I thought it also made sense because I always saw the Harvard dream as one more way Lorelai wanted to be different from her parents, where as at that point, I felt Rory was more the middle ground of not just kowtowing to their every request but also honoring her grandparents and genuinely caring about their feelings.

[Melancholy]

I agree with @scarynikki12 that there could be plenty of interesting drama from Rory living in Christopher's neck of the woods instead of her mom's. But GG was just never a story about Rory developing a close relationship with her father. Richard and Emily were the "develop a true family relationship with these flawed but loving people from a different world after all these years" characters. That was particularly clear when Sherri seemed way more into Rory going to school in Boston than Christopher. 

Edited May 8, 2017 by Melancholy

[Katy M]

If possible, I think I agree with all of you.  It could have made for more drama and better character development if Rory was a little further away.  She could actually still go home every weekend, though.  We're not talking about Stanford here. But, I also think that Harvard was more Lorelei's dream for Rory, than Rory's.  I think this is evidenced by the "fact" that she wanted to go there since she was 3, or whatever ridiculous age it was. 

[scarynikki12]

I agree that Harvard was due to Lorelai's influence but I never saw anything about Yale that dazzled Rory so much that she was willing to give up her lifelong goal for it.  I still think that, in show, Rory picked it primarily to make Richard happy and the fact that it was closer to Stars Hollow (with Lorelai and Jess) was a nice perk.  Logistically, it does make sense as we would have spent a lot of time wondering how Rory teleported from campus rather than assuming New Haven was 30-45 minutes away and moving on so I get that part. 

[shron17]

48 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

but I never saw anything about Yale that dazzled Rory so much that she was willing to give up her lifelong goal for it. 

I understand feeling this way, but the point was that Rory makes decisions with a pro and con list, and the results were that Yale was way ahead of the other two schools. Rory did seem excited about Yale when she moved in and later also.

[Melancholy]

Also, Rory's excitement about Harvard on the tour came from a very naive, unsophisticated place. Every top-ranked university has classes taught by Socratic method with free flowing dialogue and so many books in their libraries that it's impossible to finish them all in four years. This was attitude of a girl who just learned two eps before that she'd need extra curriculars to make it into Harvard. We are supposed to learn that Rory learned more about the schools as she seriously started preparing for college to the point that she could write a discerning pro/con list. 

IMO, Rory was absorbing and liking the tradition and Gilmore stories at Yale but she was playing it cooler because Richard was providing enough enthusiasm and she didn't want to get hopes up and make bigger drama. However the Gilmore history was a Yale plus that Harvard doesn't have as opposed to the giant libraries and great classroom discussions which they both share. And then Richard's stunt ruined the visit. However even still, Rory and Lorelai liked Yale enough that they read the Yale materials that night. 

Edited May 8, 2017 by Melancholy

[hippielamb]

On 5/5/2017 at 10:36 PM, Melancholy said:

That actress, Melora Hardin, is so talented. I had no trouble connecting the shrink on GG to her other character, Jan Levinson on The Office. Two very different personalities but a similar enough preppy look. She was one of the funniest, memorable recurring characters on The Office. However, I had trouble connecting the same actress to her other character, butch lesbian Tammy Cashman on Transparent. However she was great as a totally different character in Tammy- hilarious, very sympathetic as more Pfeifferman-family collateral damage even though she definitely has her own insufferable bizarre side contributing to the problems. 

I can't get over that I hated Zack on Gilmore Girls. And I hated Terri in True Blood. However knowing that Todd Lowe played BOTH of them, convinces me that Todd Lowe is a MAGNIFICENT actor.

Her hair is much different so it took me a few minutes but I have watched that car therapy scene with Lorelai so often, it was easy to pick her out. I never watched the Office so I only know her from GG. 

14 hours ago, deaja said:

As far as plot contrivances go, this one never bothered me.  I thought it also made sense because I always saw the Harvard dream as one more way Lorelai wanted to be different from her parents, where as at that point, I felt Rory was more the middle ground of not just kowtowing to their every request but also honoring her grandparents and genuinely caring about their feelings.

I thought Lorelai overreacted about the Gilmores (particularly Richard) overstepping with Yale because in her mind Yale=toeing the family line while Harvard=freedom from their influence and expectations. 

It's no coincidence that Harvard is the rival to Yale. 

[Frelling Tralk]

On 08/05/2017 at 6:13 AM, scarynikki12 said:

I think this one is neutral among fans but still qualifies as unpopular since the show went the other way but I wish Rory had gone to Harvard.  I don't know if they made the decision for her to go to Yale in season 3 when they could feel confident the show was coming back or if it was always meant to be a bait-and-switch type of story since season 1 had Trix getting outraged at the thought of Rory not following in Richard's footsteps.  All I know is that Rory had spent the majority of her life planning to attend that school, went to Chilton with the express purpose of making that dream a reality, loved the impromptu campus visit with Lorelai, and everyone she knew was aware of this plan.  She didn't seem to love Yale any more than Harvard when they visited in season 3.  If anything, she seemed fairly neutral about it.  She liked the art museum a lot but didn't mention anything else about the campus.  It didn't knock her socks off like Harvard did.  I do think that, outside of the show wanting her to be as close to Stars Hollow as possible, Rory picked Yale for two reasons: to stay close to home and make Richard happy.  

It seems like this is a pretty unpopular opinion, but I tend to agree! I was definitely a bit taken-aback at the bait and switch after there was so much emphasis put on Harvard being Rory's dream school. Obviously that must have been planted by Lorelai originally, but Rory was certainty genuinally passionate and excited about getting to go there, and she never seemed as excited about Yale in the same way to me, more that she simply decided it was the better option after she came up with a practical pro and con list. And that's fine I guess, but it was a bit unconvincing to me after three years of Rory talking about how going to Harvard was her ultimate dream and all she had ever wanted 

And honestly I'm not American, so I might be missing something, but I've always understood the general consensus is that Harvard is by far the most distinguished university in America (certainly worldwide you hear it mentioned a lot more than Yale, it's generally ranked #1 or #2 in the world, while Yale doesn't crack the top ten). So it seems a bit contrived to me that Rory would choose Yale over Harvard after she had been accepted by both schools. I mean it worked with what the show was going for with Rory wanting to please her mother, while also finding herself drawn towards her grandparents lifestyles, but I can't help feeling that if it were a real situation then there's no way the offer to study at a school like Harvard wouldn't have been Rory's first choice. 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Frelling Tralk

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

Yale's an extremely prestigious university. It's part of the Ivy League, just as Harvard is. The rivalry between the two has often been compared to the Oxford/Cambridge rivalry in England. It's also one of the highest rated drama schools in the world, and overall ranks only one or two spots behind Harvard in terms of American universities. 

Yale is considered to teach more theory, while Harvard is considered to teach more application. Honestly, of the two, Yale is more of a natural fit for Rory. Harvard was clearly Lorelai's choice (all the prestige of Yale, plus the added bonus of being their number one rival). Kind of moot, as neither university has a real life journalism program. 

[JayInChicago]

Also based on what we saw of Rory, I'm just not sure she would have gotten into one, much less both. They were definitely reach schools for her.

[Frelling Tralk]

Oh sure, I'm not saying that Yale isn't considered an extremely prestigious school in its own right, just that my understanding has always been that Harvard is considered the very best in the country/world, so it was a surprise to me that Rory still choose Yale after achieving her dream of getting into Harvard. It was a bit of a twist, but I would have thought realistically that nearly everyone who gets accepted at a place like Harvard would have considered it their first choice and the one to then go too, not the back-up 

And agreed it was a stretch that Rory got accepted at all of the top schools that she applied too, it actually would have made more sense to me if she ended up going to Yale because Harvard turned her down, while she had her grandfathers legacy to help her with Yale. Not that she wasn't smart enough to merit getting accepted at a lot of top schools, but not every single one of them surely. I'd imagine there were a lot of students like Paris applying who had a whole string of accomplishments from when they were very young, while Rory was trying to catch-up after turning 16/17, and even a lot of her extracurriculars (the school paper, student government) involved playing back-up to Paris, so I just don't see how she was a shoe-in at all the top schools she applied too

[Melancholy]

I know two people who got into Yale and Harvard, but chose Yale. 

Grades and scores are more important than extracurricular activities for college admittance. Rory beat Paris on the PSATs and thus, showed the acumen to do the same on the SATs/ACTs/AP tests. I've always fankwanked that Paris didn't slip in her grades to not be valedictorian or salutatorian  until she started dating Jaime in S3 and then, feel apart over not getting into Harvard. It's possible that Paris slipped enough in her grades when she started dating Jaime to the point that these schools already knew that Rory was the top of her class at Chilton by the time they finalized their decisions in around March/April. 

Ironically, I think Rory may have gotten hardship-points. The non-Yale colleges only got a snapshot of her life. They ask what your parents do and where they graduated from school. Rory seemed a lot more disadvantaged than she was by saying that her dad didn't graduate from college and her mother just graduated from community college last year. It's likely that she wrote a personal essay about how her mother was knocked up at 16 and raised her alone. Ivy League schools felt like they were getting the best of both worlds with her- proven academic success at a favorite prep school/Ivy feeder school in Chilton while also building a diverse class with students from disadvantaged backgrounds. They could have assumed that Rory's mother went into debt to send her to Chilton or Rory went to Chilton on scholarship. Since they only ask about high school extracurriculars, all of that would make up for how Rory's freshman and sophomore years were left "blank" with extracurriculars. Possibly, I think a Chilton adviser advised Rory how to finesse her Stars Hallow volunteering into activities to fill up the gaps in her application. 

Edited May 17, 2017 by Melancholy

[Melancholy]

To add, I didn't find the college stuff unrealistic. However maybe this an UO- I don't get why Rory immediately started looking for a newspaper job solely right after graduating college. She wanted to be on TV. I don't get why she didn't also apply for fellowships or junior level jobs at TV news programs. 

[clack]

Have we ever seen Rory actually pursuing a TV career? Even while at Yale, she could have gotten a job at the college radio station and interned at the local TV network affiliate, as her model, Christiane Amanpour, did.