Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Gilmore is BACK

Eternal optimist that I am, I believe the seventh season premiere of Gilmore Girls the other night proved that the show is back, and better than ever. Well, maybe not better than ever. But it's back. The things we love most about Star's Hollow: the witty repartee, the brilliant comic timing, the lovable town characters, and the main characters keeping true to form, all of which heavily waned during Season 6, seem to have retured. I'm not necessarily blaming Amy Sherman-Palladino for the disaster that was last season, and she is, after all, the show's creator. But now that she's moved onto a different project, it seems that the show's spirit has been revived.

What I loved most about Gilmore when I first started watching it was the marked lack of dramatic plotlines. It just wasn't soap opera-y at all. There were conflicts, as must exist in any story to make a story, but it was all treated very realistically and with such finesse that the show never felt over-the-top or ridiculous, or like something you couldn't relate to. In fact, just the opposite: Star's Hollow felt like more of a place you'd love to exist in and could escape to any time you watched the show.

I submit that any crap drama that occurred Tuesday night, such as Kirk crashing Taylor's pretty car into Luke's diner, and Lorelai telling Luke that they're done, done, and done (which, I admit, was painful to watch), was an unfortunately necessary response to last season. The writers are now having to play the part of Clean-up Crew to clear up the depressing plotlines of last season, tie them off, and move on, back to the land of True Gilmore. It was more than a little ugly, it's true, the whole Luke thing, and I was always holding out for a Luke-Lorelai Happy Ending, but what other reasonable choice did the writers have after Lorelai's ridiculous retreat into Doormat Central and her infuriating decision to sleep with Christopher--and not even seem to enjoy it!--at the end of last season's finale. Sadly, Luke and Lorelai can no longer exist as a couple. We might as well just accept that, and move on to more reasonable (and delicious) prospects, i.e. Christopher. And why not. If Luke and Lorelai weren't destined to be together, than let's go with Lorelai and Rory's father instead.

So yes, the plots themselves weren't ideal. But the core and life of the show is back. I swear it is back. If you don't believe me, watch it again. And regardless, how much did we love some of the subplots, such as Sookie and Michel's wrestling match, Paris' SAT boot camp, and Babette washing her unmentionables over at Lorelai's. And you know, as much as I wish Rory would communicate with Logan a little better and ditch the Vapid, Doormat Pod Person Vibe she seemed to pick up from her mother last season like the Bad Habit to End All Bad Habits, I did think the rocket ship plotline was kind of sweet. And Rory's as back as she can be, really. The way she described Kirk's trip through the diner wall? Totally channeling the Ghost of Gilmore Past.

Okay mendacious: your rebuttal.

P.S.
Dear Gilmore Girls Writers,
Please, please, pretty please don't make me eat my words. I'm already a little nervous looking at the summary for next week.
Cherries on Top,
penelope

3 comments:

Kurt said...

More Paris.

mendacious said...

much much more paris!! (the writers got that part right! they absolutely did!)

Karima said...

Luke + Lorelei
Rory + anybody but Logan