Now that we’re heading into mid-December, practically every single current show is off the air as of this week, with a few last stragglers airing their winter/fall finales in the next few days. As such, there’s going to be a distinct lack of things to watch, meaning that the holiday break is a perfect time for TV watchers to catch up on shows they’ve missed.
Netflix is the obvious choice, as it has about ten zillion different shows you can binge-watch, but recently I’ve found myself getting into a show that I would have normally never viewed as “my thing.”
As you may have guessed from the title, that show is Gilmore Girls. I can’t say I sat through all seven seasons like my wife, who was the primary binge-watcher in this situation, but I’ve caught about the last three of them, and I was surprised to really, really like the show despite the fact that it was essentially about nothing. It’s like the Seinfeld of dramedies, held together by stellar writing and great characters.
Gilmore Girls aired on The CW before The CW was really The CW, and was mostly the WB. It launched the careers of current stars like Supernatural’s’ Jared Padalecki, Melissa McCarthy and I think I even saw Community’s Danny Pudi pop in up an episode.
The show stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel as Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. Lorelai had Rory when she was 16 and still in high school, and raised her as a single mom until now, when Rory begins the show at nearly the same age her mow was when she got pregnant. The show is set in the background of Stars Hollow, a small town that could be somewhat like The Vampire Diaries’ Mystic Falls minus all the vampires, werewolves and murder.
It’s a show where nearly nothing ever happens, the plotlines mostly revolving around the love lives of Loreli, Rory and various supporting characters. People cheat, but not enough where it’s a soap opera, people throw punches, though that’s maybe once a season, but all around life is pretty pleasant. And it’s kind of…great.
So many series today are overly action-packed and lust-filled shows, and it’s actually reassuring to watch a series based on really none of those things; Gilmore Girls is just excellently rendered relationships between likable characters. Though the tone is certainly more upbeat, it did remind me a bit in that way of Friday Night Lights, one of my favorite dramas of all time.
And yet, the dialogue was all Aaron Sorkin to me. It’s not Sorkin, obviously, airing the same time as a chunk of The West Wing, but the quick, snappy style is something that definitely emulates him, only its used wholly for good rather than snarky political points. The dialogue, especially between mother and daughter, in an endless amount of phone calls, is just hilariously clever. The show is nearly 90% banter, with only a few heavy moments of drama, but it’s so well done it just works. I’ve sat down and watched no less than six or seven forty minute episodes of Gilmore Girls in a row, and felt like I could watch six or seven more no problem shortly after. It’s one of those shows that’s just so watchable, that it’s perfect for binge viewing.
Actually, I think in this case Gilmore Girls is one of the best binge watch candidates out there. I have to imagine watching the show week to week over the course of half a year might have been a little tiresome, given that in any given week not all that much happens. But it’s an easy show to consume in giant chunks, and it seems tailor made for the viewing format even as it debuted in 2000 when the only way to do that was to buy pricey DVD box sets.
I know the general rule of thumb is that every show is better when binge-watched these days, but I’ve found many 22-episode shows to simply be exhausting to get through when you try to binge watch them. Classics like X-Files and Buffy, shows more relevant to my interests than Gilmore Girls, have been really tough to get into while binge watching, yet I’ve breezed through the story of Lorelai and Rory with no problem at all over the course of the past month.
Give it a shot. Even if you don’t think it’s your thing, it’s pretty hard not to like.
[Photos via WB]
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