Gilmore Girls redux

It is easy to slam Hollywood’s lack of creativity with all the reboots, remakes, and sequels that get churned out.  There is no creativity, so executives endlessly mine their youth for properties to breathe new life into.  Did the world really need a movie version of Car 54 Where are You?

But then something you like gets revived from the dead, and suddenly the lack of creativity doesn’t seem so bad.  I have reservations about the resurrection of The X-Files coming in January, but I think a six-episode run gives them a better shot at success than another two hour movie or a full 22 episode revival.  The latest good news from the cultural abyss that is Hollywood is that Gilmore Girls may live again.

Reports are that Netflix may revive the criminally-never-nominated-for-an-Emmy series (okay, it won once for make-up, big whoop) for four 90 minute movies.  The only two flies in the ointment are the unfortunate passing of Edward Hermann who played the Gilmore patriarch Richard, and the fact that Melissa McCarthy now makes a bazillion dollars an hour as an honest-to-goodness Hollywood superstar.  Who would have picked Sookie as the breakout actor of the show?

I am a big fan of Gilmore Girls, despite the fact that the show never really clicked on all gears.  Because there were so many plots and subplots going on, there was always something annoying.  For starters, Rory’s taste in men was disastrous, hopping from the thick but well-meaning Dean to the bright but hot-headed Jess to the dreamy but vapid billionaire Logan Huntzberger.  I realize that no man could possibly be good enough for little miss perfect, but the ones she ended up with were a far cry from perfect.

Lorelei’s taste in men was somewhat better, but the only boyfriend who “got” her was Digger, who they dropped as a character into one of the biggest black holes in TV history, never to be seen again; Lorelei’s father betrayed him on a business deal, he naturally sued (with good reason), and Lorelei dumped him on the grounds that she couldn’t date anyone suing her parents.  Given her history with them, a law suit against them should have been an aphrodisiac.  Digger and the lawsuit were never heard from again.

I know the world is filled with Luke and Lorelei shippers, but please.  He is an uptight, anal retentive control freak, and she is a free-spirited loose cannon who doesn’t play by the rules (or, if she does, she mocks them).  The two of them together are a murder/suicide waiting to happen.  Plus, the way they split in season 6, with Luke calling off the wedding because they were “rushing in to marriage” after knowing each other nearly two decades, and Lorelei responding by sleeping with, then marrying, her ex-boyfriend/Rory’s father, well, to Luke it would bring new meaning to the term “sloppy seconds.”

Oh, and how many relationships did Lorelei ruin by keeping information about it from her parents? The correct answer is: all of them.

The characters who populated Stars Hollow included two borderline psychotics, mayor Taylor Doose and Lane’s mother Mrs. Kim, and one (Kirk) who unarguably had brain damage.  Toss in the psychological problems of Rory’s friend Paris and the passive-aggressive fixations of Lorelei’s mother Emily and you have a cast of characters that could keep a dozen psychiatrists busy for years.

Throw in the fact that in Season Six the disastrous decision was made to not have Lorelei and Rory speak to each other for most of the season, and that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was ousted as show running for Season Seven leading to even greater plot mis-steps (*cough*Lorelei and Christopher marriage*cough*), and you have a series that had a lot of problems.  And let’s not even consider that Rory took a semester off from Yale and yet still graduated on time and was class valedictorian.

But all that is forgiven because of the glorious dialog and strong connection between Lorelei and Rory.  One of my favorite bits of trivia is that for a normal hour long TV episode a script is about 40-45 pages, but a typical Gilmore Girl script was 75-80 because they just talked so fast.  Lauren Graham should have won an Emmy, but because the show straddled comedy and drama she never got a nomination (she did get a Golden Globe and Screen Actors’ Guild nomination for Best Actress in a Drama in 2002).  If the show is revived as a series of movies there won’t be any such genre-confusion.

Lorelei Gilmore will always be my favorite female character—smart, funny, gorgeous, and just messed up enough to make it work.  Stars Hollow is one of the most memorable locations in TV history, and if we get to peek in on what has happened since the final episode, it will be a welcome visit.