Gilmore Girls
Created by	Amy Sherman-Palladino
Starring	Lauren Graham Alexis Bledel Melissa McCarthy Keiko Agena Yanic Truesdale Scott Patterson Kelly Bishop Edward Herrmann Liza Weil Jared Padalecki Milo Ventimiglia Sean Gunn Chris Eigeman Matt Czuchry
Opening theme	"Where You Lead" lyrics by Toni Stern and music by Carole King, re-recorded for Gilmore Girls by Carole King and Louise Goffin
Composer	Sam Phillips
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	153 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Amy Sherman-Palladino Daniel Palladino David S. Rosenthal Gavin Polone
Producers	Lauren Graham Patricia Fass Palmer Helen Pai Mel Efros Jenji Kohan
Production locations	Burbank, California Beverly Hills, California Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Cinematography	Michael A. Price John C. Flinn III
Running time	45 minutes
Production companies	Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions Hofflund/Polone Warner Bros. Television
Original release
Network	The WB (2000–2006) The CW (2006–2007)
Release	October 5, 2000 (2000-10-05) – May 15, 2007 (2007-05-15)

Gilmore Girls is an American comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB to widespread critical acclaim ^[1] and remained a tent-pole to the WB until it was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW.^[2] The entire series has been released on DVD, as well as on iTunes.

The show follows single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Graham) and her daughter, also named Lorelai but who prefers to be called Rory (Bledel), living in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. This is a town filled with colorful characters,which is located approximately 30 minutes from Hartford, Connecticut.^[3] Ambition, education, and work constitute part of the series' central concerns, telling Lorelai's story from pregnant teen runaway and high school dropout to co-owner and manager of the Dragonfly Inn. Rory's transition from public school to the prestigious Chilton is similarly followed, exploring her ambition to study at an Ivy League college and to become a foreign correspondent. The show's social commentary manifests most clearly in Lorelai's difficult relationship with her wealthy, appearance-obsessed parents, Emily and Richard Gilmore, and in the interactions between the students at Chilton, and later, Yale University.

Gilmore Girls is known for its fast-paced dialogue filled with pop-culture references. The show earned several award nominations, notably winning one Emmy Award. It was also critically acclaimed as it placed No. 32 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list,^[4] and was listed as one of Time magazine's "All-TIME 100 TV Shows" in 2007.^[2]

Production

Development

The show is set in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show's creator, drew inspiration for Stars Hollow while she made a trip in Washington, Connecticut where she stayed in an inn, the Mayflower Inn, which she found beautiful. She was amazed at how the people of the town knew each other very well and by the next morning of her stay, the dialogue of the pilot was written. She explained: "If I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town, I thought that would be wonderful. [...] At the time I was there, it was beautiful, it was magical, and it was feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie. . . . There was a longing for that in my own life, and I thought — that's something that I would really love to put out there."^[5] The show's pace is inspired by Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy films.^[6]

The pilot episode of Gilmore Girls received financial support from the script development fund of the Family Friendly Programming Forum, which includes some of the nation's leading advertisers, making it one of the first network shows to reach the air with such funding.^[7]

In 2003, the WB planned a spin-off called "Windward Circle," featuring character Jess Mariano, in which Jess gets to know his estranged father, Jimmy, and is befriended by California skateboarders. However, the network canceled the show before it aired, citing high production costs to shoot on location in Venice Beach.^[8] Gilmore Girls Season 3 episode "Here Comes the Son" was effectively a backdoor pilot for the unaired spin-off.

Writing and filming

As signalled by its tagline "Life's short. Talk fast", Gilmore Girls is known for its fast-paced dialogue filled with pop-culture references.^[9][10] Much of the dialogue is peppered with references to film, television shows, music, literature, and celebrity culture. The relative obscurity of some of these allusions resulted in the production of "Gilmore-isms" booklets included by the WB in the DVD sets of the first four seasons.^{[11][12][13][14]} Subtitled "The 411 on many of the show's witty and memorable wordplays and pop culture references", the booklets also contain comments from the show creators.

Gilmore Girls also relied on a master shot filming style, in which a scene is filmed to frame characters and their dialogue together within a long and uninterrupted, single take; often illustrated through another method regularly employed on the show, the walk and talk.^[9] A special stage was made of plaster and celotex for the scenes during which Rory is at Yale, which were based on Calhoun College. Her visit at Yale to decide which university she should choose was filmed at Pomona College.^[15]

Music

Iconic for its distinct musical score consisting of melodic "la-la's", Gilmore Girls' score was composed by singer-songwriter Sam Phillips throughout its entire run. For the score's instrumental arrangement, Phillips primarily used her own voice, an acoustic guitar, and on occasion included violin, drums, piano, and electric guitar as well. In crafting the sound of the show, creator Amy Sherman Palladino requested the music to sound very connected to the girls themselves, almost like "an extension of their thoughts. And if they had music going in their head during a certain emotional thing in their life, if they were real people, this would be the music that was going on." Sherman-Palladino also stresses how "[she] thinks that is what elevated the show. Because [music] wasn’t a wasted element in the show. Everything was trying to say a little something, add a little something to it." ^[16]

Music also plays a large part in the show as a frequent topic of conversation between characters and in its appearance in scenes themselves.^[17] The musical tastes of most of the main and recurring characters are revealed at some point, and the two leads have notoriously eclectic but discriminating tastes: Both mother and daughter dislike the "nondescript jazz" played at a babyshower, sculpt a snowman in Björk's image, and proclaim Metallica a "great band".^[18]

In fact, the first conversation between Lorelai and Rory in the premiere episode, at Luke's Diner, involves the whereabouts of Macy Gray's debut album On How Life Is. Lorelai famously likes '80s music including The Bangles, XTC, and The Go-Go's, and her old bedroom at her parents' home has Duran Duran posters on the walls. Rory is often shown listening to alternative bands, like Pixies, Sonic Youth, Belle and Sebastian, and Franz Ferdinand, and expresses her liking for P J Harvey and distaste for Smashing Pumpkins. Rory also swaps CDs with her mother, and credits her with introducing her to new books and music throughout her life in her address as Chilton's valedictorian.^[19]

Rory's best friend Lane is a music enthusiast, and her list of musical influences runs to five pages when she writes her "drummer-seeks-rock-band" want ad, which included the Ramones and Jackson Browne.^[20] Lane eventually forms her own band, Hep Alien, an anagram of the Gilmore Girls producer, Helen Pai's, name. The band plays rock with various influences, and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row, appears as Gil, Hep Alien's talented guitarist.

Various musical acts make guest appearances on the show, from The Bangles, Sonic Youth, Sparks and The Shins, to Carole King, who re-recorded her 1971 song "Where You Lead" (lyrics by Toni Stern) as a duet with her daughter Louise Goffin for the Gilmore Girls theme song. Grant-Lee Phillips appears in at least one episode per season as the town troubadour, singing his own songs and covers.

Lorelai names her dog Paul Anka, who later appears in her dream sequence in the Season 6 episode 'The Real Paul Anka'. Though she only appears on-screen in one episode ("Partings", 6.22), much of the non-diegetic score is composed and performed by Sam Phillips. In 2002, a soundtrack to GG was released by Rhino Records, entitled Our Little Corner of the World: Music from Gilmore Girls. The CD booklet features anecdotes from show producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino about the large part music has played in their lives.

Change of network and cancellation

In April 2006, it was announced that Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel could not come to an agreement with The CW, the new network that resulted from a merge between UPN and The WB. They said in an official statement: "Despite our best efforts to return and ensure the future of Gilmore Girls for years to come, we were unable to reach an agreement with the studio and are therefore leaving when our contracts expire at the end of this season. Our heartfelt thanks go out to our amazing cast, hard-working crew and loyal fans. We know that the story lines from this season will continue into the next, and that the integrity of the show will remain long after we leave Stars Hollow." David S. Rosenthal who had already worked on the show as a writer and producer, replaced them.^[21][22]

On June 11, 2012, while being interviewed for her new show Bunheads, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino reflected on the contract dispute and her own departure in an interview with Vulture, saying: "It was a botched negotiation. It really was about the fact that I was working too much. I was going to be the crazy person who was locked in my house and never came out. I heard a lot of 'Amy doesn’t need a writing staff because she and [her husband] Dan Palladino write everything!' I thought, That’s a great mentality on your part, but if you want to keep the show going for two more years, let me hire more writers. By the way, all this shit we asked for? They had to do [it] anyway when we left. They hired this big writing staff and a producer-director onstage. That’s what bugged me the most. They wound up having to do what we'd asked for anyway, and I wasn’t there."^[23]

On May 3, 2007, The CW announced that the series would not be renewed.^[24][25] According to Variety, "Money was a key factor in the decision, with the parties involved not able to reach a deal on salaries for the main cast members. Other issues, such as number of episodes and production dates, may have also played a role".^[26] Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has expressed an interest in pursuing a Gilmore Girls movie.^[27][28] Lauren Graham has noted that a lot of fans "were disappointed with how it [the series] ended" and commented on the possibility of a follow-up movie.^[29] On September 15, 2010, Lauren Graham told Vanity Fair that a Gilmore Girls movie is a definite possibility: "people with power, people who could actually make it happen, are talking about it."^[30][31] She stated the same thing in March 2013 through her Twitter account in the wake of companion show Veronica Mars earning Kickstarter funding for their film, saying it would be Sherman-Palladino's call for a film.^[32]

Cast

The season(s) during which each actor has been included in the main cast are marked in black. When a starring actor has also appeared as a guest star in other seasons, this is marked in gray, with the number of guest appearances noted in italics. A white square indicates the actor does not appear in the season.

Main cast

Additional main cast

The following characters have been promoted to main character status since season 2. All additional main cast are only credited in episodes in which they appear.

* In the second episode of Season One ('The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton'), Sean Gunn played a character named "Mick", who worked for a telephone company as a DSL installer. Gunn did not return as Mick, but was given a part as Kirk.

Recurring cast

* In the twenty-first episode of Season Three ("Here Comes the Son"), Sherilyn Fenn played a character named "Sasha", the girlfriend of Jess Mariano's estranged father. Fenn did not return as Sasha, but was given a part as Luke's daughter's mother, Anna Nardini, in Seasons Six and Seven.^[33]

Episodes

Premise

The pilot of Gilmore Girls sets up the premise of the show and a number of its recurrent themes as we learn that Lorelai became pregnant with Rory at age sixteen, but chose not to marry the father, Christopher Hayden. Instead, she leaves her disappointed parents in Hartford Connecticut for Stars Hollow, and has had only irregular contact with them ever since. Later episodes reveal that Lorelai and the infant Rory were taken in by Mia, owner of the Independence Inn, where Lorelai eventually progressed from maid to executive manager. In the pilot, Rory, who is about to turn sixteen, has been accepted to Chilton Preparatory School in order to pursue her dream of studying at Harvard University. Lorelai, unable to afford Chilton's tuition, strikes a bargain with her parents for a loan to cover the tuition in exchange for an agreement that every Friday night she and Rory will join Emily and Richard for dinner at the senior Gilmores'.

The tensions between Lorelai and her parents are central to the series, and the close relationship Rory develops with her grandparents serve to underscore the choices Lorelai made at Rory's age to leave their privileged world and follow her own path. Which path Rory chooses and whether she re-enters that world is similarly explored.

Lorelai's romantic life

Lorelai's various romantic entanglements also play a role in the show from the start. Her first relationship involves Max Medina (Scott Cohen), Rory's English teacher, who becomes briefly engaged to Lorelai. She also has short relationships with a divorced man named Alex (Billy Burke) and her father's business partner and childhood friend Jason Stiles (Chris Eigeman), with whom she breaks up after Jason and her father have a falling out in their business. She also has an on-again-off-again relationship with Rory's father, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), which becomes even more complicated after Chris and his girlfriend Sherry have a daughter, Georgia (Gigi).

However, Lorelai's relationship with local diner owner Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) is a constant throughout: It is a playful, close friendship until Season 4, when the two finally become romantically involved. Lorelai's disapproving parents encourage Christopher to win Lorelai back, which results in a brief breakup between Lorelai and Luke. Despite this, at the end of Season 5, Luke and Lorelai become engaged. They split at the end of Season 6 when Luke discovers that he has a 12-year old daughter, April (Vanessa Marano). After Luke doesn't respond to Lorelai's ultimatum to elope, she spends the night with Christopher. In Season 7, Lorelai and Christopher impulsively get married on a trip to France. But after Christopher realizes that Luke and Lorelai still have feelings for one another, they end their marriage. In the final episode of the final season, Luke and Lorelai reconcile after Luke organizes a town farewell party for the graduating Rory. The final scene of the series mirrors the final scene of the first episode, with Lorelai and Rory eating in the diner and Luke behind the counter.

Rory's romantic life

As with Lorelai's, Rory's romantic attractions also run throughout the show.

Rory meets Dean Forester (Jared Padalecki) in the first episode of the series. The two maintain a relationship for nearly two-and-a-half years, with Rory rejecting advances from Chilton classmate Tristan Dugray (Chad Michael Murray) all the while. Rory and Dean break up briefly on their three-month anniversary date because Rory can't reciprocate Dean's feelings after he professes his love for her.^[34] Dean and Rory get back together in the end of Season 1.^[35] Rory and Dean break up again after Rory falls for the troubled Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia), Luke's nephew, whom Luke has taken in. Although Jess is reviled by the rest of the town, Rory's deep-seated connection with him is undeniable, and she finds that the two share interests in music and literature and maintain a special understanding of each other throughout the series.

After Jess leaves town unannounced, Rory reunites with a now-married Dean, which ultimately ends Dean's marriage and creates a short-lived rift between Rory and her mother. Rory and Dean break up when he decides he can't compete with her life at Yale and her new Yale friends, including Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry), whom Rory eventually starts dating. A negative performance review from Logan's publisher father on Rory's future as a journalist causes Rory to temporarily quit Yale, become estranged from her mother, and live with her grandparents. At the wedding of Logan's sister, Rory learns that while the two were on a break months before, Logan had sex with most of his sister's bridesmaids, and she is disgusted at his shocking behavior. Rory moves in with driven, compulsive classmate Paris Geller, but Logan convinces Rory to come back to the apartment that they shared. For Rory's final year at Yale, the couple is in a long-distance relationship due to Logan working for his father's company in London. Eventually Rory graduates Yale, and Logan proposes to her, asking that she move to Silicon Valley with him. Rory reluctantly refuses his offer because she wants to pursue her journalism career and they break up, with Logan saying that it is marriage or nothing.

Rory's friends

Rory's friendships with long-time best friend Lane Kim (Keiko Agena), a second-generation Korean American from a strict Christian home, and Paris Geller (Liza Weil), a friend/rival at both Chilton and Yale, play strongly in the show. Although she shares a close bond with the two, they do not appear to get along with one another. At the end of the Season 6, Lane marries Hep Alien band-mate Zach van Gerbig (Todd Lowe), a sweet, slightly clumsy rocker. At the beginning of the Season 7, Lane discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant and gives birth to twins (Kwan and Steve) later in the season. Also in Season 7, Paris is accepted to Harvard Medical School (Harvard is the school she has wanted to go to for years, as her family are all alumni, but was rejected for undergraduate studies in Season 3). In Season 4, Doyle McMaster (Danny Strong) storms onto the show as the Yale Daily News editor. He and Paris start dating in Season 5, after Paris's relationship with a much older Professor Asher Fleming (Michael York) ends with Fleming's sudden death.

Reception

Critical response

Upon arrival, Gilmore Girls was lauded for its distinct dialogue infused style par creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, the strength of the dynamic familial themes, and the performances of its cast, particularly leading star Lauren Graham. In the San Francisco Chronicle review of the first season, John Carman says: "It's cross-generational, warm-the-cockles viewing, and it's a terrific show. Can this really be the WB, niche broadcaster to horny mall rats?"^[36] Newsday says in reviewing the show "The way in which Gilmore Girls digs lightly but firmly into deep-seated emotion is as magical as the way Lorelai's yellow dream daisies end up scattered all over their town. We weekly wish we were there."^[37] In the Orlando Sentinel review of the second season premiere, critic Hal Boedeker writes "Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino writes clever dialogue and ingratiating comedy, but she also knows how to do bittersweet drama. That Gilmore Girls is a touching comedy is also a tribute to the actors, led by the luminous Graham. The Gilmore family is one television clan worth knowing, and that can't be said too often these days.^[38] The A.V. Club included in November 2009 the episode "They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?" on its list of the best TV episodes of the decade.^[39]

Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly rated the seasons one to six "A" and the last season "C". He wrote that Lorelai and Rory Gilmore combined with "Sherman-Palladino's protean gift for cultural references in some cross between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Ulysses," made you live each week in "an old world with a fresh coat of words." He described the last season as "a death-blow season [which] was more accurately Gilmore Ghosts, as the exhausted actors bumped into the furniture searching for their departed souls and smart punchlines" but concluded the previous seasons were "six seasons of magnificent mixed emotions, with performances as shaded as a spot under a Stars Hollow elm tree."^[40]

Gilmore Girls was listed as one of Time magazine's "All-TIME 100 TV Shows."^[2] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Thank you, fast-talking Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, for suggesting moms and teenage daughters really can get along—all it takes is love, patience, and copious quantities of coffee."^[41]

Alan Sepinwall included the show in his "Best of the 00s in Comedies" list, saying: "It got on the air thanks in part to a coalition of advertisers looking for family-friendly programming, and "Gilmore" offered up an unconventional but enormously appealing family: mom Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and teen daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), so close in age that they often seemed more like sisters, plus the wealthy parents (Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann) Lorelai split from after getting pregnant at 16. As the quippy, pop culture-quoting younger Gilmores were forced to reconnect with their repressed elders, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino got plenty of laughs and tears out of the generational divide, and out of showing the family Lorelai created for herself and her daughter in the idealized, Norman Rockwell-esque town of Stars Hollow. At its best, Gilmore Girls was pure, concentrated happiness."^[42]

Awards

Gilmore Girls received an American Film Institute Award and two Viewers For Quality Television Awards, and was named New Program of the Year by the Television Critics Association. The show won an Emmy for its only nomination: 2004's Outstanding Makeup for a Series for the episode "The Festival of Living Art". The show's actors have received many awards for their work on the series. Graham won two Family Television Awards, and she won Teen Choice Award for Best TV Mom twice. Alexis Bledel won a Young Artist Award and a Family Television Award. The series also won a Family Television Award for New Series, and was named Best Family TV Drama Series by the Young Artist Awards.

Ratings

The show was not a ratings success initially, airing in the tough Thursday 8pm/7pm Central time slot dominated by Survivor and Friends in its first season.^{[citation needed]} When it moved to Tuesday, its ratings surpassed its time slot competitor, popular series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which moved to the United Paramount Network (UPN) but retained the same time slot. It became The WB's third-highest-rated show.^[43] In its fifth season, Gilmore Girls became The WB's second-most-watched prime time show, with viewer numbers that grew by double digits in all major demographics.^[44]

The following list details the seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Gilmore Girls in the United States. The show rated first in the 18–25 demographic for women and second for men throughout the first four seasons. Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.^{[citation needed]}

Broadcast history

Gilmore Girls's first season commenced in the Thursday 8pm/7pm Central time slot, as a lead in for Charmed.^[52] Renewed for a second season, the show was relocated on Tuesdays 8pm/7pm, the time slot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which transferred to UPN, and served as a lead-in for Smallville.^[53] In its syndicated release in the United States, the show airs on the ABC Family Channel, and SOAPnet. Reruns first aired on The WB in the summer of 2002 on Sunday nights when it re-aired Season 1 episodes under the title Gilmore Girls Beginnings, and is one of two shows on The WB to give the Beginnings in its title for reruns (the other being 7th Heaven).

In the United Kingdom Gilmore Girls was initially screened on Nickelodeon from 2003. It remains the only hour-long series to air thereon to date. Only the first three seasons were shown, with episodes edited for content and some, like "The Big One," dropped entirely. The series was subsequently picked up by the Hallmark Channel, which gave UK premieres to Seasons 4 and 5, and E4, which continues to show all seven seasons in rotation, with occasional cuts to render it suitable for its early time slot. On 16 January 2012, Gilmore Girls aired its final episode on UK Channel E4. All seven seasons are now being aired, unedited, on 5*.

In Brazil and Mexico, the show premiered in November 5, 2000 on Warner Channel. Then it was shown Boomerang across Latin America.

DVD releases

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has released all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD in region 1, 2, 4. All seasons are available for digital download on the iTunes Store, Amazon.com and other digital sales websites. Seasons 4 through 7 are also available in HD on iTunes Store.

Media

In popular culture

• In an episode of Scrubs, the character Turk privately watches the show and when asking his friend JD if he watched the latest episode, JD replies with: "I'm so mad at Lorelai, I can't even talk right now." ^[58] In a separate episode, the character Ted thought the day of the week was Tuesday, and when someone told him it was Wednesday, he responded "Aw, man! I missed a Gilmore Girls!"

• In an episode of Mad TV, they parody the show with a segment titled "Gabmore Girls."^[59]

• In an episode of The WB series Supernatural, Sam played by Gilmore Girls actor Jared Padalecki, is riding the tour bus on the WB lot when the tour guide announces "and now to the right is Stars Hollow! It's the setting for television series Gilmore Girls and if we're lucky, we might even catch one of the show's stars." Sam hearing this, gets very uncomfortable and quickly gets off the bus.^[60]

• In the ABC sitcom Happy Endings, Penny refers to herself and her mother as being "like the Gilmore Girls but we came first and we're better." Another character, Brad, cites the show saying "she worked at an inn with her best friend Sookie St. James."^[61]

• In the Fox drama Glee episode called "The Role You Were Born to Play", Blaine Anderson tells Sam Evans "that sent the box of Gilmore Girls for Kurt that returned without being opened."

• In an episode of The CW series Gossip Girl, both characters Blair Waldorf and her father referred to Gilmore Girls. Blair's father asked her "if she had been up all night watching Gilmore Girls" the night before she found out if she had been accepted early into Yale, to which she replied she "deserved to get into Yale more than Rory".^[62]

• In an episode of The Venture Bros called "Return to Malice" The Monarch exclaims that the charming town of Malice, where evil scientists lived, looked like "the town from the Gilmore Girls".

Books

• Four books for young adults, which adapted scripts for episodes in the first and second seasons into novel form from Rory's first-person point of view and included bonus "diary" content which included publicity photos from the series, were published by HarperCollins's HarperEntertainment/TV Tie-Ins imprint:
  • Like Mother, Like Daughter by Catherine Clark (2002, ISBN 0-06-051023-4)
  • I Love You, You Idiot by Cathy East Dubowski (2002, ISBN 0-06-050228-2)
  • I Do, Don't I? by Catherine Clark (2002, ISBN 0-06-009757-4)
  • The Other Side Of Summer by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Helen Pai (2002, ISBN 0-06-050916-3)
• Coffee At Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gab Fest (2007, ISBN 1-933771-17-8)
• The Gilmore Girls Companion by A. S. Berman (2010, ISBN 1-59393-616-8)

References

External links

• Official website
• Gilmore Girls at IMDb