One of the great things about streaming services is that thanks to fan outcry they have been able to revive shows that have either been cancelled or just ended by purchasing the rights to the show. Netflix in particular have attracted so many subscribers to the service simply by bringing once dead shows back to life, even I was attracted to the service because of its revival of Black Mirror.
A big one that Netflix scored in 2015 was Gilmore Girls. Following the huge success of the show in the early to mid 00’s, Gilmore Girls was subject to major changes during its final seasons including the removal of series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. Because of the somewhat unsatisfactory ending the show had there were talks for a long time of reviving Gilmore Girls with a film to tie up the loose ends, however negotiations always fell through. But with the Netflix acquisition came the opportunity to bring Gilmore Girls back proper and give both Palladino & fans the opportunity to see how the series was always intended to end.
Nine years after Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) graduated from Yale to pursue a career in journalism she seems to have hit a brick wall. With her career on a downwards spiral and her love life messier than ever, Rory moves back to her hometown of Stars Hollow to live with her mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham).
Meanwhile Lorelai and Luke (Scott Patterson) have been living together for almost a decade but are still childless and unmarried. Both frustrated with each other as top how they have let themselves get this way, the two entertain the idea of IVF and finally tying the knot. However, following the death of her father, the relationship between Lorelai and her mother Emily (Kelly Bishop) has finally reached breaking point. Could fixing her relationship with Emily finally give Lorelai the confidence to move on with the rest of her life?
A big one that Netflix scored in 2015 was Gilmore Girls. Following the huge success of the show in the early to mid 00’s, Gilmore Girls was subject to major changes during its final seasons including the removal of series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. Because of the somewhat unsatisfactory ending the show had there were talks for a long time of reviving Gilmore Girls with a film to tie up the loose ends, however negotiations always fell through. But with the Netflix acquisition came the opportunity to bring Gilmore Girls back proper and give both Palladino & fans the opportunity to see how the series was always intended to end.
Nine years after Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) graduated from Yale to pursue a career in journalism she seems to have hit a brick wall. With her career on a downwards spiral and her love life messier than ever, Rory moves back to her hometown of Stars Hollow to live with her mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham).
Meanwhile Lorelai and Luke (Scott Patterson) have been living together for almost a decade but are still childless and unmarried. Both frustrated with each other as top how they have let themselves get this way, the two entertain the idea of IVF and finally tying the knot. However, following the death of her father, the relationship between Lorelai and her mother Emily (Kelly Bishop) has finally reached breaking point. Could fixing her relationship with Emily finally give Lorelai the confidence to move on with the rest of her life?
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life consists of four feature length episodes, each one centred around a season of the year, starting with Winter, Spring, Summer, and finally Fall. Despite taking place so long after the end of Season Seven of Gilmore Girls, it feels like slipping back into an old pair of your favourite shoes. It’s familiar, comfortable, and nothing seems to have changed. In fact, that’s kind of the key thing to A Year in the Life which our characters must confront, the stagnation present in their lives and how to move forward.
Rory, now the same age as Lorelai was at the start of Gilmore Girls, has already peaked in her career. Her unhealthy attitude towards how desirable she is as a writer is no different to how she couldn’t cope not being top of the class at school and college. Plus, her inability to evolve as a person is highlighted in her love life, once again being ‘the other woman’ for one of her ex-boyfriends, this time for Logan (Matt Czurchry). Having ended the original show’s run as one of the least likeable characters, A Year in the Life presents Rory with her last shot at redemption by having her return back to the source as a world wizened thirty-something seeking to understand how she turned out this way.
With Rory’s crisis being one of internal self-discovery, Lorelai meanwhile faces her crisis externally. Whilst she is happy with Luke, their relationship has not been what either of them envisioned it to be because they’ve been too scared to take that next step. Her business has not grown, causing her best friend and partner Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) to seek out new opportunities, with Michel (Yanic Truesdale) considering following suit. Plus, with the death of Richard, the relationship she has with Emily is as bad as it was following Rory’s birth. The world and the people around Lorelai has changed but she has failed to move with it, so she must finally mature from the persona she has held since she was sixteen and accept responsibility for her actions.
This is what Season Seven of the show should have been, our leading ladies recognising the problems they cause themselves and growing from them. But having this large time gap has allowed that message to be arguably even more poignant than had the Seventh Season always been like this. Things get wrapped up in a satisfying way too, with all of the major characters moving forward in meaningful ways; and yes, Amy Sherman-Palladino finally got to present the ending she had always envisioned for the characters, and it’s so fantastic. Without giving too much away, it’s perfectly Gilmore Girls; like a warm embrace, but with just a dash of crazy unexpectedness to keep you on your toes.
Rory, now the same age as Lorelai was at the start of Gilmore Girls, has already peaked in her career. Her unhealthy attitude towards how desirable she is as a writer is no different to how she couldn’t cope not being top of the class at school and college. Plus, her inability to evolve as a person is highlighted in her love life, once again being ‘the other woman’ for one of her ex-boyfriends, this time for Logan (Matt Czurchry). Having ended the original show’s run as one of the least likeable characters, A Year in the Life presents Rory with her last shot at redemption by having her return back to the source as a world wizened thirty-something seeking to understand how she turned out this way.
With Rory’s crisis being one of internal self-discovery, Lorelai meanwhile faces her crisis externally. Whilst she is happy with Luke, their relationship has not been what either of them envisioned it to be because they’ve been too scared to take that next step. Her business has not grown, causing her best friend and partner Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) to seek out new opportunities, with Michel (Yanic Truesdale) considering following suit. Plus, with the death of Richard, the relationship she has with Emily is as bad as it was following Rory’s birth. The world and the people around Lorelai has changed but she has failed to move with it, so she must finally mature from the persona she has held since she was sixteen and accept responsibility for her actions.
This is what Season Seven of the show should have been, our leading ladies recognising the problems they cause themselves and growing from them. But having this large time gap has allowed that message to be arguably even more poignant than had the Seventh Season always been like this. Things get wrapped up in a satisfying way too, with all of the major characters moving forward in meaningful ways; and yes, Amy Sherman-Palladino finally got to present the ending she had always envisioned for the characters, and it’s so fantastic. Without giving too much away, it’s perfectly Gilmore Girls; like a warm embrace, but with just a dash of crazy unexpectedness to keep you on your toes.
All of the major supporting characters in the series return (barring Richard Gilmore following Edward Herrman’s death in 2014), though some are in the series for unexpectedly short periods of time. Sookie for example only shows up in the back half of the final episode. But the likes of Paris (Liza Weil), Lane (Keiko Agena), Kirk (Sean Gunn), Miss Patty (Liz Torres), Babette (Sally Struthers), and Taylor (Michael Winters) make prominent appearances; with other popular characters like Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), Zach (Todd Lowe), Doyle (Danny Strong), Jason (Chris Eigeman), April (Vanessa Marano), Dean (Jared Padalecki), and Christopher (David Sutcliffe) popping up fleetingly to give fans a glimpse into how they’re doing. I do wish that Jess and Christopher had been given a little bit more screen time than they did, as they were by far the most interesting characters to catch up with. Jess seemingly having never moved on from Rory, and Christopher finally giving Rory closure as to why he was mostly absent from her childhood. There’s even a fleeting reunion of the Life and Death Brigade consisting of Rory, Logan, Colin (Alan Loayza), Robert (Nick Holmes), and Finn (Tanc Sade) in a great little skit during the Fall chapter that’s a really nice footnote to Rory & Logan’s relationship that Season Seven never got to have.
My favourite character in the revival however is Emily. Come the end of Season Seven her and Lorelai have made significant steps to improve their relationship, but when A Year in the Life starts, they’re back to square one. Emily’s entire journey through A Year in the Life is moving on from the death of Richard, and this allows actress Kelly Bishop to slowly begin to let the walls down that Emily has had up for so many years. Particularly in the final episode, we get to see an entirely new side to Emily, one that is now embracing her life as a widow and has reconciled with her daughter. It’s actually quite moving to see her go through these changes over the four episodes and Bishop delivers such a sensitive performance, without ever losing that sharp edged and often cruel wit that everybody loved about Emily from the original show.
My favourite character in the revival however is Emily. Come the end of Season Seven her and Lorelai have made significant steps to improve their relationship, but when A Year in the Life starts, they’re back to square one. Emily’s entire journey through A Year in the Life is moving on from the death of Richard, and this allows actress Kelly Bishop to slowly begin to let the walls down that Emily has had up for so many years. Particularly in the final episode, we get to see an entirely new side to Emily, one that is now embracing her life as a widow and has reconciled with her daughter. It’s actually quite moving to see her go through these changes over the four episodes and Bishop delivers such a sensitive performance, without ever losing that sharp edged and often cruel wit that everybody loved about Emily from the original show.
The biggest departure from the original show is in the way A Year in the Life looks. The types of camera used, and the way shots have been constructed makes A Year in the Life feel a little too modern at times. It lacks that warm fuzzy feeling that Gilmore Girls exuded so much in the original seven seasons of the show, and so no matter how strong the four episodes are they don’t always feel right visually.
The other problem that faces A Year in the Life is that being feature length episodes, they are roughly double the length of a standard episode of the original show. This can lead to some pacing issues here and there, the biggest offender of which is when during the Summer chapter we spend roughly fifteen minutes watching ‘Stars Hollow: The Musical’, one of Taylor’s latest schemes to increase tourism. Whilst this skit is funny for the first few minutes, it goes on for far too long and this is a large amount of time that could have been dedicated to more important things…such as my aforementioned desire to see more of Jess and Christopher.
The bottom line is that A Year in the Life is a worthy epilogue to the much beloved mainline series. Rather than feel like a bolted-on afterthought, the show organically weaves its way into the original material to provide the much-needed closure that Season Seven of Gilmore Girls lacked. It ties up all the loose threads nicely, but also leaves the door open for another return to Stars Hollow in the future if the fans and creators want it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll have dozens more quippy one liners on hand once the final credits roll, and honestly what else could you ask for from Gilmore Girls? A Year in the Life is a perfect example of how streaming services can cater to fanbases in ways that traditional network television simply can’t, as well as a template for how to do return to long dormant series tastefully and respectfully.
The other problem that faces A Year in the Life is that being feature length episodes, they are roughly double the length of a standard episode of the original show. This can lead to some pacing issues here and there, the biggest offender of which is when during the Summer chapter we spend roughly fifteen minutes watching ‘Stars Hollow: The Musical’, one of Taylor’s latest schemes to increase tourism. Whilst this skit is funny for the first few minutes, it goes on for far too long and this is a large amount of time that could have been dedicated to more important things…such as my aforementioned desire to see more of Jess and Christopher.
The bottom line is that A Year in the Life is a worthy epilogue to the much beloved mainline series. Rather than feel like a bolted-on afterthought, the show organically weaves its way into the original material to provide the much-needed closure that Season Seven of Gilmore Girls lacked. It ties up all the loose threads nicely, but also leaves the door open for another return to Stars Hollow in the future if the fans and creators want it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll have dozens more quippy one liners on hand once the final credits roll, and honestly what else could you ask for from Gilmore Girls? A Year in the Life is a perfect example of how streaming services can cater to fanbases in ways that traditional network television simply can’t, as well as a template for how to do return to long dormant series tastefully and respectfully.