Gilmore Girls The WB / The CW
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Caution: potential spoilers

Note: I need to seriously update this entry when I can find the time, as I probably haven't touched my review since around season 3. In fact I need to pretty much get rid of almost everything I had previously written, and rewrite the whole thing from scratch. But for the moment I'll leave most of it more or less intact...

The entire cast is superb, the acting is perfection. The characters are perfection. The writing is perfection. The music is perfection. Everything is... okay, you get the idea. The show brilliantly blends comedy and drama. Oh, the dialog! Oh, everything! Let's say now that the title characters, Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory, drink a lot of coffee. It's a very frenetic, coffee-fueled series, really. Everything is so fast-paced! Mostly everything. It slows down a bit now and then.

Hmmm, maybe I should actually tell you what it's about. Lorelai is something of an independent thinker. Kind of um... okay, let's go back. When she was 16, she wanted to get away from her parents, Emily and Richard. They're good people, and all, but they were kind of stuffy and whatnot. Quite well-to-do, refined, boring, proper. Lorelai isn't really proper. She's more wild, free, opinionated, independent. Very funny. She's just really great. And there was this boy, Christopher, who's also a good guy. And Lorelai got pregnant and ran away. Um, her parents live in Hartford, and she ran away to Stars Hollow, a beautiful, quirky little town full of quirky TV characters. She had her daughter, Rory, though Chris wasn't around anymore. Well, he needed to get his life in order, and stuff. Anyway, Lorelai stayed at the Independence Inn, where she got a job.

Now it's 16 years later, she's managing the inn, and Rory is attending Chilton, a prep school in Hartford, for which Rory's grandparents loaned Lorelai the money for tuition. (Rory has always dreamed of going to Harvard.) In exchange for the loan, Lorelai and Rory now spend most Friday nights having dinner with them. This was rather awkward at first, but it's gotten more comfortable over time, though there are always problems, setbacks and whatnot. But Emily and Richard are getting involved more in Lorelai's life as well as Rory's. This is a good thing, though often stressful and all that. They're still very different people, and often don't understand one another, and have disagreements, and stuff.

But Lorelai and Rory have a truly great relationship with each other, they're like best friends. Although they each have best friends more their own age, as well. Lorelai's best friend is Sookie, the chef at the Independence Inn, and the two of them dream of opening their own inn together someday. Rory's best friend is Lane, whose parents are from Korea, and Lane's mom is unbelievably strict and stuff, which makes things incredibly difficult for Lane... but I reckon that makes getting away with anything all the more fun. Anyway, Lane is very into music, she's got great taste and a great CD collection, which she keeps hidden under the floorboards. She's really cool. Um... she became a cheerleader at one point, which seemed kind of odd, but she was good at it and chose the music for the cheers, which was good, and um... now she's taking up the drums.

What else? Um... there are tons of great people in town. I must begin with Luke. He runs the diner, where Lorelai and Rory go every day for food and copious amounts of coffee. Luke's a really cool guy, though rather grouchy and anti-social... A very caring guy in his way, and an intelligent and funny guy, and he has such a great relationship with Lorelai and Rory, and a lot of fans of this show believe Luke and Lorelai should be more than friends. And they're not wrong, but... it's complicated. What else to say? Luke used to be involved with a woman named Rachel, they have this on-again-off-again relationship. We only saw her for a little while, during one of their on periods.

Lorelai dated this guy named Max Medina, who is a teacher at Chilton. He's really a great guy, and they almost got married. But then Lorelai called it off. It's rather awkward. Um... and Chris shows up now and then, and he's a great guy and his life has actually gotten together and he's got this great friendship with Lorelai and he's getting to know Rory, and they love each other, and everything's really great. But he started dating another woman where he's living now, like Boston or wherever. But they finally broke up and it looked like he'd actually get together with Lorelai... but it turns out suddenly at the end of the second season finale, that his ex-girlfriend is pregnant. Which complicates things tremendously.

Um... what else? Rory has been dating a fairly decent guy named Dean. They broke up for awhile when he told Rory he loved her and she couldn't say it in return. But then they got back together. Later, Luke's nephew Jess moved into town, from New York. His mother shipped him off to stay with her brother Luke, because Jess was just a major troublemaker and she couldn't deal with him. And soon the whole town of Stars Hollow came to dislike Jess. Or most of them. Luke wasn't particularly thrilled with him and all the trouble he caused, and his generally bad attitude, and everything. But he's family, and he loves and cares about him. And Rory likes him. And he really likes Rory. They do have some things in common, such as being quite bright and well read, some common interests. She's the only person he ever treats with any respect or has any kind of decent attitude toward. Aside from that, he's still a big troublemaker, though some of the things he does are pretty amusing. But just by being himself, he's interfering with Rory's relationship with Dean. Dean seriously doesn't like this guy, and Lorelai doesn't like him any better. They're both worried Rory could fall for him, and neither of them wants that. Meanwhile Rory just wants to be friends with him, and she wants the rest of the town to give him a break.

Eventually Dean's out of town for a while, and Jess is flunking in school because he's really not trying because he really doesn't care. And he's making trouble there, stealing things and whatnot, just for the hell of it. So... the principal wants him to get a tutor. Luke suggests Rory tutor him, because she's the only person he'd possibly listen to. And she agrees to do it, but he doesn't pay much attention to his studies, and finally says he'll actually study if they go out for a drive, to get some ice cream. I should say Dean had built a car as a gift for Rory. And she let Jess drive. And they had an accident. It was nobody's fault, but of course the whole town blamed Jess, who they already hated. And Rory fractured her wrist and had to wear a cast for a couple weeks. And Luke and Lorelai had a serious argument from which they haven't really recovered as of the end of the second season. Jess moved back to New York for awhile.

Meanwhile, Lorelai has been attending night school, and now she's graduating. And Rory misses the ceremony because she went to New York on the spur of the moment to see Jess. Actually she cut class to go. She should have had plenty of time to get back, but some accident delayed all the buses when she tried to return. She got back after the ceremony. And anyway, some time later, Jess returned to Stars Hollow. And things with Dean and Rory seem... well, they're together, but there have been some underlying problems for quite awhile. Not problems, exactly, but just... they seem to be drifting apart, though neither one wants to admit it. And Jess coming back does complicate things, because as much as she doesn't want to, Rory is definitely falling for him.

Meanwhile... there are tons of other characters I haven't even mentioned. There is Kirk, who does many different jobs. And everyone likes to pick on him. Everyone thinks it's very funny, except Kirk. He's... an odd fellow, but certainly funny in his own way. Oh yes, very funny. He is one of our favorite characters. Who else? Sookie is dating a farmer named Jackson, and their wedding begins in the second season finale. Jackson's a good guy. This French guy Michel works at the Independence Inn, and he's really funny. He seems to hate his job and be constantly annoyed at everyone and everything, and Lorelai likes to tease him and stuff. It's so fun! His disdain is almost sort of stereotypical, but really he's a great character though. There's Taylor, who I guess is like the mayor, right? Anyway, he runs a grocery store or whatever. And owns a lot of property. And is upset by a lot of things that happen. And he bugs the hell outta Luke, and it's mutual. There's also Miss Patty the dance instructor and Babette who is Lorelai and Rory's next door neighbor, and her husband Morey. Um... there is also the town troubadour, I don't think the character actually has a name. But he's pretty good, plays guitar and sings and um, he's cool. Sets the mood nicely and all. There's also some hippie guy who was in a couple episodes, he's cool too.

And at Chilton there are a few girls who... um... I guess we could call Rory's friends. Sort of. There's a couple of girls named Louise and Madeline. More importantly there is Paris Gellar, who isn't really a friend. I don't think it's really possible for her to have friends. She's too um... serious, and ambitious, and stuff. She can never relax. I think relaxing would be far too stressful for her. She has her goals, and the thought of taking a single moment in life to do anything other than pursue those goals is like anathema to her very existence. Um... yeah, Type A, that's what she is. To the core. And everyone else is pretty much in her way, except when she needs them for something, in which case they're merely annoying and stupid and too damn slow, distracted, unfocused. But... she generally reaches her goals and gets others to do their best and um... I dunno, she'll probably have a heart attack someday... but at least she'll be successful. And um. I dunno.

But anyway... um... So like, this show is totally brilliant, and um... the dialog... and it's so funny and witty and dramatic and just makes me laugh and cry and stuff... and oh, the endless pop culture references as well as references to all sorts of stuff of an academic nature (historical or what have you), and I don't always get it, but it's still always funny and cool and perfect and great, and stuff...