Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall: Rank the Revival Episodes & Discuss how they interrelate

[Kromm]

I thought they were very unequal.

I didn't flat out hate Winter as much as some of the posters here seemed to, but on balance of seeing all four realized it was weak comparatively. So Spring was a relief, because it was so much better than Winter. Then came the bummer of Summer... a truly depressing and annoying episode. Like almost everyone, I had some problems with the very end of Fall (although maybe not the same problems, because my problem was the sloppy parallels between Rory and Lorelai's lives and not how abrubt the ending was), but overall enjoyed Fall quite enormously.

Scorecard: The Palladinos - 1 shitty episode each, 1 good one each.

Ranking (best to worst):

1.) Fall
2.) Spring
3.) Winter
4.) Summer

[LeafontheWind]

There were parts of Winter that I felt were the strongest of the revival, but overall the episode fell flat for me. If I ignore the last 30 seconds of Fall, it was great.

Ranking:

1. Fall

2. Winter and Spring (tied because Winter had stronger moments, but Spring was better overall)

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42. Summer (suckity suck suck)

[Nilo]

I totally agree, Leaf.  I really liked Winter - mainly because of my Queen - Emily.

[cantbeflapped]

Ranking (best to worst)

Fall

Winter (probably for the emotional impact of being the first episode and the Emily/Lorelai fight)

Spring 

Summer 

I absolutely loved the final four words.  I a) forgot I was supposed to be anticipating them and b) didn't realize we were at the end.  So they packed a huge emotional wallop and surprise.  Plus, as I mentioned elsewhere, I'm fascinated by the idea of Rory Gilmore as a single mom.  She's much older than Lorelai was with a greater support network.  And i didn't mind an open ended ending...would also love to see more of the story if that happens.  

[paulvdb]

Difficult choice for best. Fall had the best moment (Lorelai's phone call to Emily to tell her memory of Richard) but it also had the Life and Death Brigade which I always hated. So overall I had to vote for Spring. It didn't have the highs of Fall but also not its lows. And it had Paris, Headmaster Charleston and we finally got to see Mr. Kim.

Worst was easy: Summer with the seemingly endless Stars Hollow musical. I skipped most of the musical once I realized that it was going to go on for more than 10 minutes.

[lulu1960]

How funny. I love Fall (as it looks like most of you did.) Followed by Winter and Summer (I actually liked Summer and the musical grew on me). I  liked Spring the least.

[Kromm]

I expected Summer to take a bashing in the voting but wow... even moreso than I'd thought.

But yeah. It was THAT bad.

Almost as universal as the panning of Summer is the appreciation of Fall. 

The main skew seems to be on Winter and Spring.  I personally rate Spring as fairly good and Winter as more than a bit flawed, but it seems like some folks feel the reverse is true.

[Lady Calypso]

I think that each episode, for me, had its good and bad moments. Summer had its very bad moments, but I can't say that some of the moments weren't good:

• I thought the Rory/Lorelai fight at the cemetery was well done. Rory was being a stubborn jerk and Lorelai was in the right, but I somehow still enjoyed that scene.
• Emily/Jack/Lorelai before the cemetery was good too. Seeing Lorelai's confusion and total shock, followed by her moving into the kitchen to call Rory was well done. I thought Emily's "you'll be coming back" line was very poignant. An underrated moment, for sure. Emily was so sure that Lorelai was going to sneak off, maybe wait outside for Rory, and not come back. 
• The Rory/Jess scene was good too.

Actually, after the musical that should have ended, the last...20-25 minutes of Summer were good. Not amazing or great, but good. 

As for Winter/Spring, both again had some very strong moments followed by some weaker ones. From Winter, I very much enjoyed the flashbacks to Richard's service. Those 20 minutes spent on that were dedicated to Richard, Emily, and Lorelai. A lot of Winter was weak, but these particular scenes are what makes the episode good. From Spring, I really did enjoy the Chilton scenes. Anything Paris worked well. I even enjoyed some of the therapy scenes.

 But I don't know if I can choose a particular order. I've already watched Summer and Fall twice, but Winter/Spring are ones I've only watched once.

[TimetravellingBW]

5 hours ago, Kromm said:

I expected Summer to take a bashing in the voting but wow... even moreso than I'd thought.

But yeah. It was THAT bad.

Almost as universal as the panning of Summer is the appreciation of Fall. 

The main skew seems to be on Winter and Spring.  I personally rate Spring as fairly good and Winter as more than a bit flawed, but it seems like some folks feel the reverse is true.

Yeah, Fall was clearly the best and Summer was the worst but Winter and Spring seemed pretty equal. I personally preferred Spring because I found Winter really slow to start off with and was actually interested in Rory's career story. (The return to Chilton, Paris and the Emily/Lorelai therapy was all good too). But for people who weren't as interested in Rory I can see why they'd prefer Winter. 

[Meow25]

Fall

Winter

Spring

Summer

 

Summer was total bullshit.  ?

I thought winter & fall were beautiful bookends with a lot of garbage in the middle episodes.  I really dislike Dan Pallidinos perspective.  ASP is much better with the girls.  

 

The he musical stuff was freaking awful, and wayyyyyyyy too damn long.  Painful.  

In fall I cried from the Emily/Lorelei call until the final four words.  I don't mind the final four words.  It's appropriate.  

 

Emily rules.  Logan & Rory belong together on Douche Island.  The end. 

[Guest]

I need to watch it again but definitely have Fall as my #1 and Summer as #4 because of the stupid musical. Right now, I think Winter and Spring are tied but Spring gets a bit of an advantage.

[tarotx]

Summer was bad but I liked Winter and Spring about the same. Fall was the best episode and really the only one we needed with just a slight amount of what happened in the other seasons to fill in the blanks. 

[nolieblue]

Winter, Fall, Spring, Summer

I liked both Winter and Fall quite a bit more than the other two, and liked Winter a bit more than Fall because the pace and dialogue were the most similar to the original series. I liked Fall but it was more dramatic and the direction was different. I also hated the LDB crapola and the last four words.

Spring wasn't bad but Summer was terrible. I didn't wait ten years to watch Sutton Foster (even though I love her in Younger) sing and dance for 20 minutes.

[Melancholy]

I loved the whole revival. Although like everyone, Fall was my favorite and Summer was my least favorite. However, Summer still had plenty going for it: 

1. April's stuff. Particular LOLs at Lorelai's "Is this on?" <bangs the wine like a mike> after April wasn't getting her jokes and Rory/Lorelai being hip to April's bullshit about smoking pot while Luke gullibly takes her denial at face value. Then, especially, April going berserk to Rory as her cool hipster facade fails but also throwing great shade. "Seeing you back in your childhood room! It's like a postcard from the real world!" 

2. Babette razzing Rory about being back. "They been to college and then, out in the real the real world and it spit out like a piece of stale gums. And they're all back in their childhood rooms. LIKE YOU." 

3. Babbette shouting so loudly that she sticks out compared to the air conditioning. 

4. I wish there was more of Luke as the Lifeguard- because it's SO RIGHT. Shouty angry white knight. 

5. Rory's constant snobbery to the 30-someting gang is so bitchy and hypocritical- but that makes it a pretty funny joke on Rory. 

6. The Secret Bar. Loved The Wire references. (Also love Lorelai's Don impersonation. The Godfather has a quote for every circumstance!)

7. I particularly love montage of Lorela and Rory delivering the Stars Hallow Gazette to These Boots are Made for Walking. Great physical comedy- like Lorelai blending into tai bo crowd. Or Doyle also being ticked about the lack of the poem. 

8. I kind of like the musical. I mean, I think it was a big waste of time. However, it has its charms. Sutton Foster and Christian Borle. I love Broadway so maybe I'm an easier sell for good references. I heart Babette's rehearsed bashing of other plays. "Hassa igga ebowai, you nerds! Audiences are ringing a new doorbell!" Also, Lauren Graham's expressions were brilliant. I particularly love Lorelai started off with "What the f--?" but a shush interrupting before she can exclaim "fuck". Netflix profanity be damned. 

9. The Rory/Jess scene- especially MV's fine, fine arms. And then, more Luke/Jess comedy with Jess throwing Luke's hat into the street. 

10. The Lorelai/Rory debate on whether the patio cart was auxiliary to Richard or directly associate with him. "Rory, you sent a vulnerable wounded turtle into a nest of grey-haired honey badgers." "Now she's out there sipping a cocktail with Jack the Zipper!" 

11. The Rory v. Lorelai fight is really interesting. I wish they delved more into it. However, it's really new and realistic grounds for conflict. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by Melancholy

[amensisterfriend]

I'm surprised by how many of us seem to be Team Fall! :) It was actually my favorite by a REALLY wide margin. I'm pretty sure Winter gets my silver medal. When I first watched this, I was convinced Summer was the nadir of the series, but now I'm thinking it's in a tight battle with Spring for that bottom spot. As people have pointed out here, all the seasons had some really good things about them...and some things that were not really good at all :) 

What's the one scene/storyline you'd have removed from each of the four seasons if you could?! I sense many of us would vote to remove most of that interminable musical from Summer :)

And, on a brighter note, what were your very favorite scenes from each of the four? 

[hippielamb]

Fall

Spring 

Winter

Summer

Fall was great. That is all. 

I liked Winter quite a bit, just seeing the girls again and how they interacted at home put a big grin on my face. That's all I wanted really from this revival. Seeing how Luke fit into their family convinced me of their relationship working. I do think Spring was a better episode, I loved all of Rory's floundering and the wookie freakout had me cracking up 

Summer boy, what happened? That unending musical, not even LG's reactions could warrant it going on and on and on... Didn't care for the girls trash talking at the pool. It was gross. It wasn't all bad but those things definitely mark it down. 

2 hours ago, amensisterfriend said:

 

What's the one scene/storyline you'd have removed from each of the four seasons if you could?! I sense many of us would vote to remove most of that interminable musical from Summer :)

And, on a brighter note, what were your very favorite scenes from each of the four? 

I forget which plot is in each episode. I would definitely lose that musical. Just No. I would rather watch Kirk or some other townie with a wacky plot. Lorelai's Wild adventure seemed like filler. I loved her phone call to Emily, but the scenes in the motel and chatting up with the other women felt pointless. It was cute seeing her in a scene with Jason Ritter again though. The surrogacy thing in Winter felt manufactured to put some conflict between Luke and Lorelai. I don't buy it. 

Er, anything with Lorelai and Rory together? I'm easy. Loved Rory coming back to her grandparents home and the flashbacks. That whole scene has my heart. Emily cursing! The previously mentioned wookie freakout with Lorelai giving Rory a pep talk. Kirk's pig, Petal and ooober. Lorelai exercising, Rory doing her Kiefer Sutherland impression, and Luke being completely straight faced. I couldn't stop laughing. His non reaction made it even funnier.

[Melancholy]

Favorite and least favorite scenes?

Winter: I'll be like most everyone else and say that my favorite scene was the barnburner of the fight between Lorelai and Emily. It was a particularly epic fight with Lorelai fucking up at such a pivotal time and Emily just going in there and brutally wielding all of the big criticisms of Lorelai. However for more variety, I loved the end scene with Luke/Lorelai. Lorelai's growth and sweetness in this Revival was a favorite thing and she was very adorable missing the obvious signs that Emily was trapping her into therapy in her joy that Emily was taking her advice and reaching out. It was funnier with Luke clearly having learned The Gilmore Way and telling by Lorelai's side of the conversation that she was being trapped into therapy. It ends in a really low-key but warm fuzzy way with Luke comfortingly holding Lorelai next to dressed up!Paul Anka. Plus, great Dolly Parton song. 

My least favorite were the Naomi Shropshire scenes. I don't watch Dr. Who so I didn't have an attachment to the actress but she was *very* grating in this role. I wish there was a better storyline about Rory flaming out of a project. The "waiting on lines" story was better executed. It didn't rest on some grating cameo of an actress and buying into some poorly explained myth about how this character is a feminist folk hero or something. It rested on a universal phenomenon and it more clearly showed Rory's flaws in how she approached it. I also think the Paris surrogacy stuff was funny and effective in her office but it was overplayed when she followed Luke to the diner to sic her "breeders" on him. However, I guess I don't resent that because it placed Paris in Stars Hallow for stronger scenes with Rory and watching Lane's band. 

Spring: I liked the trip to Chilton and the Paris-stuff. It was very nice seeing Rory in a teacher-inspiring mode to see the possibility of a more hopeful future for her, since she was so bleak in the revival. I found a lot of the Paris v. Doyle bickering the OS kind of annoying, but it felt funnier coming from them as older, divorcing spouses. Again, I'd cut the Naomi Shropshire parts. However for variety, the International Food Fair didn't work for me as a townie gag. It could have but the jokes were weak. 

Summer: Well, I wrote what I liked about Summer above. What stood out the most was the These Boots Are Made For Walking delivery scenes and the Rory v. Lorelai fight over the book. 

I wouldn't cut out The Musical. I kind of liked it or at least, I thought there plenty of joys to be extracted from the mess. I guess there was better ways to use the time and money to hire Christian Borle and Sutton Foster- but I didn't dislike the Musical as it was used and I had fun watching it. It's small but I didn't think Luke's Floaty Hut gag was funny at all. I'd cut that. And I'd cut Lorelai and Rory using boy slaves at the pool. It wasn't funny. It was just mean. 

Fall: A lot of awesome. I really loved the whole thing. Emily and Lorelai connecting over that great story of Richard and then, connecting over diverting Richard's "Build an empire" speech, Rory at her grandparents and her loving memories of them, Luke truly fighting for Lorelai and then, the proposal and picture perfect wedding, how Lorelai and Luke both had very Stars Hallow flash-mob plans, Emily's BULLSHIT scene with the DAR ladies, the Life & Death Brigade's best mission since it's first in I Jump, You Jump Jack Emily revealing in lecturing about brutal whaling practices, ALL of the Jess scenes and basically everything he did and said ("Yeah, what if we were naked?" LOL). I loved Wild so I really enjoyed the whole storyline with the other women. Plus, as I wrote elsewhere, I think it was important to Lorelai's arc. I even loved this Christopher scene because it focused 100 percent on his relationship with Rory instead of the OS's trick of playing him as a love interest while ignoring his performance as a father. As a BtVS fan, there's something so right about Rory's jittery "Five by five" at a dark, ambiguous hour for her. Kirk storylines could be annoying but I thought it was very heartwarming that there was the whole set up of "Kirk went self-importantly OTT and fucked up once again" but he actually did good this time in how he set up the wedding decorations. 

I think I'd remove out the cuts to Emily in Nantucket during the wedding. I think it undermined the story of what came before. If the cuts hadn't existed, I'd operate with the straightforward POV that Emily was scheduled to come in to the planned wedding but obviously, she'd miss the elopement because she wasn't in SH at the time. However, the cuts to Emily were weirdly dark and ominous even though I don't think it adds up that way. 

Edited December 1, 2016 by Melancholy

[Rhodes]

There was some great stuff in Summer that is entirely tuned out by the never ending musical. Why they didn't split that up in segments throughout the episode or just release it as an online extra is just...so Palladino.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Rhodes

[Lady Calypso]

I think the issue with the Musical is that it may be fun on your first or second watch...but not so much any other watches. All of the non-online viewers I've talked to have said that they found the musical too long and too pointless. They didn't understand why so much time was dedicated to watching two Broadway performers on a show not even about them, when more time could have been used on characters we actually have gotten to know. 

The Musical was purely spectacle. It could have been cut down. It didn't even need to be eliminated completely; just cut down by seven minutes, and then the discussion afterwards could have been cut down too. 

I liked Summer once the Musical mess was over with. I even enjoyed the Gazette delivery scenes. But from Jess' appearance on, Summer was actually good. 

[hippielamb]

On Thursday, December 01, 2016 at 9:25 AM, Lady Calypso said:

I think the issue with the Musical is that it may be fun on your first or second watch...but not so much any other watches. All of the non-online viewers I've talked to have said that they found the musical too long and too pointless. They didn't understand why so much time was dedicated to watching two Broadway performers on a show not even about them, when more time could have been used on characters we actually have gotten to know. 

The Musical was purely spectacle. It could have been cut down. It didn't even need to be eliminated completely; just cut down by seven minutes, and then the discussion afterwards could have been cut down too. 

I liked Summer once the Musical mess was over with. I even enjoyed the Gazette delivery scenes. But from Jess' appearance on, Summer was actually good. 

Really? I hated it on the first viewing. It felt so unimportant to the other plotlines, until the final song. Maybe you need to be a musical fan to enjoy the humour of it. Even the meeting where they are discussing it dragged. I never watched Bunheads. I felt watching the musical that Amy was trying to blend worlds. 

I loved the paper delivery scenes, that felt very Stars Hollow to me. The east side/west side joke cracked me up. 

[Kromm]

re: Question 3 above...

Gilmore Girls star Kelly Bishop previews the new revival, reacts to those famous last four words, and makes you cry talking about how much she misses Edward Herrman

Quote

Then there’s the question of those oh-so-famous final four words that Sherman-Palladino has long-promised she’ll end the series with, but never had a chance to write them since she left the series before its final seventh season.

Bishop says the four words were kept top-secret, with the end of the script merely saying, “And then the last four words are said.” She doesn’t consider herself a particularly nosy person, so she went most of the shoot without bothering ask about them. When she finally did ask someone, they told her, and she said, “Oh.” 

“If it’s true, this is a really lousy thing to say, if it’s really true that those are the last four words then my reaction is, ‘Eh,’” she shrugs. “That’s it.”

[DisneyBoy]

On 28/11/2016 at 5:36 PM, Meow25 said:

Fall

Winter

Spring

Summer

 

Summer was total bullshit.  ?

I thought winter & fall were beautiful bookends with a lot of garbage in the middle episodes.  I really dislike Dan Pallidinos perspective.  ASP is much better with the girls.

Quoted for truth. Did Amy not speak up when Dan had them mocking overweight people??

[junienmomo]

1 hour ago, DisneyBoy said:

Quoted for truth. Did Amy not speak up when Dan had them mocking overweight people??

Seeing as she was the one who wrote in Winter what would make Summer Lorelai look like a hypocrite, namely her accusing Luke of fat shaming her and Rory, I guess not.

Daniel simply took a bad idea and made it much worse.

[readster]

That's always been Daniel's problem. He takes things to a much larger extreme than Amy. He has his good points, but he also brought some things back into the open that people hated to begin with. Like the Diner Chain with Luke or Luke's: "April is mine!" Plus, Taylor's ideas to a larger extreme than in winter or barely anything at all in Fall. Really, the musical is the biggest pointless and biggest time waster of the entire revival. The last scene made sense, but if they would have cut it to where you see them writing it and then the numbers and not on and on and on. It would have been fine. However, they could have spent more time with April and more with Kirk and Lulu's trying to have kids situation. Also, we got dumb Zach with that aweful beard. I mean really? 

Other wise my order is: 

Fall

Winter

Spring 

Summer.