4 Reasons We’re Glad Gilmore Girls Is Back

It was revealed this week that Netflix are in discussion to bring a Gilmore Girls revival to their streaming service. When this news hit the web, a certain corner of the internet threw their hands in the air and screamed ‘at last!’

For those who don’t know, Gilmore Girls followed the whimsical lives of best friend mother-daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. They live in the pristine yet quirky town of Stars Hollow in rural Connecticut where they spend endless hours drinking coffee and making an infinite amount of pop culture quips.

The show ended in 2007 a season after its creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, left under reportedly controversial circumstances. The master-stroke that Sherman-Palladino pulls off though, is to create a show that at first glance appears to have no stakes but very quickly sucks you in with its characters.

It’s a show that puts its female characters front and centre, and manages to create conflict without resorting to violence. I love action movies as much as the next dude, but I also know Gilmore Girls is the greatest. Here’s four reasons we’re glad it’s back:

1. So much pop culture to quip about

It’s been more than eight years since Gilmore Girls had a chance to quip about something. The show has to return for no other reason than for us to find out what Lorelai and Rory make of all these comic book movies, Donald Trump, the rise of Taylor Swift and the strange journey of Kanye West.

We also need to learn what the Gilmore Girls‘ view of the whole Twilight episode is. Of course, there are also all those other cultural references in the show you need a degree in English Literature and an obsession with obscure television to understand. This is also vital to the show and another reason why it needs to come back.

2. Did Rory make it as a journalist?

Stop reading this paragraph now if you’re spoilerphobic, but the last we saw of the adorable clever-clogs Rory she was embedded as a journalist in the presidential campaign of the charismatic young Senator Barack Obama. That we’ve never found out what happened to Rory after that is, for a TV obsessive, incredibly frustrating.

Did Rory cover the entire campaign trail? Is she now a seasoned political correspondent? Does she have lunch with the Obamas every other month? There are so many potential story opportunities here that Netflix’s four episode revival may not be enough. Give me more. Give me another seven seasons.

3. We need more Stars Hollow

The Gilmores’ adoptive home of Stars Hollow is full of quirky characters who all know each other. It’s rare for a series to have so many memorable minor characters, and we need to find out what’s happened to every single one of them.

Rory’s best friend Lane ended the series with her dreams of rock n’ roll greatness on hold while she raised her kids. The town oddball Kirk was finally in a long term relationship and there are a dozen other characters who we need to check in on. Are all the town’s weird traditions and annual fairs still defiantly going on?

Most of all though, we need to know what happened to Luke, the curmudgeonly local diner owner, and Lorelai the coffee junkie. Every show seems to have a will-they-won’t-they pair somewhere, and Gilmore Girls‘ was these two. If I don’t get an answer about this before I die, I will be stuck in purgatory for eternity. I’m aware that I’m ranting like a fanboy posting in a fanfic forum at this point, so I better stop.

4. It was ahead of its time

The most important reason we’re glad Gilmore Girls is back is because it was ahead of its time. Few mother-daughter relationships on television have been quite as unique yet optimistic as that or Lorelai and Rory. In a world where most TV shows still depict the traditional nuclear family with white collar jobs as the only functional family unit, Gilmore Girls was built on a positive, successful, single parent family.

Thanks to its wit, it is also a show that has managed to attract a cult following across gender lines. When I was a university student in the UK, I was astonished by how many people I knew on campus who were addicted to the show. Gilmore Girls‘ success is proof that a show focusing so heavily on female characters can be popular with men too, something Hollywood doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge as true.

As Netflix attempts to bring Gilmore Girls back to the small screen, it will very likely still strike a chord with audiences, especially with Sherman-Palladino on board. In many ways, it could be even more trailblazing than it was before, dealing with the lives of women in 2015 and the new challenges that have arisen since it went off the air. All while managing to stay just as whimsical as before.