Like many young women my age, I love rewatching Gilmore Girls each fall. With the classic small town vibes and quirky cast of characters, I have always found it to be the perfect cozy show to watch when in need of comfort. However, the reunion show called Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life from 2016 falls short and is frankly embarrassing. While I went into the show excited to see the familiar characters and setting that I have so enjoyed, I was sorely disappointed.
First of all, the depiction of modern-day Stars Hollow is all wrong. Although Taylor is still very involved in town minutiae and the town retains its quirky quaintness, it is otherwise strikingly inauthentic to the original show. There is an oddly forced concentration on technology that has infiltrated the town. For example, Luke now provides the town Wi-Fi and his diner has morphed into the local internet cafe for people to come do computer work. Kirk, in his typical fashion, has started yet another new business. This one, a ride sharing service awkwardly called Ooober, tries too hard to be a weird play on Uber. While some town events such as the International Food Fair seem authentic to Stars Hollow, others are far less charming. They attempt to put on a confusing musical that is the raunchier sister of Hamilton. As none of the old characters are acting in it, it is just unnerving and unenjoyable to watch. As a whole, Stars Hollow is trying too hard to keep up with the times.
To add insult to injury, some of the most beloved side characters in this series have very unsatisfying updates to their journeys. Disappointingly, Lane’s band never took off and her husband Zach works a normal corporate job he doesn’t like. Neither of them realized their dreams. Lorelai’s father, Richard, is dead. Emily, Lorelai’s mother, goes through an identity crisis and although she finds fulfillment in taking in her maid’s family and moving to Nantucket, she still seems very unstable. Kirk never found a stable job and Luke’s daughter, April, is struggling in college. I was also disappointed to learn that Michel and Sookie both leave the Dragonfly Inn but neither seem to be moving onto anything much better. Christopher is still pining over Lorelai, which is just depressing. Generally, everyone is unhappy.
As for Lorelai, her update is slightly more satisfying as she marries Luke and has her happy ending. However, it is made clear that she is still flawed and possibly unstable. In the original Gilmore Girls, Lorelai is endearingly quirky and eccentric. In this series, she comes across as just plain annoying. She even tells a sob story about how her father ignored her as a child at his own funeral. Everything is about her and her struggle. She also goes off on a last minute hiking trip to escape her mundane life, which feels like a lot of attention-seeking behavior for a woman in her fifties. I honestly liked her a lot less in this series and found her to be self-absorbed and whiny.
Rory is even worse. Not only is her work life unstable, but so is her home life. She decides to move out of her apartment in Brooklyn and is staying with her mother until she finds a more stable situation. She has a boyfriend she can’t even remember exists and cheats on him with Logan. Basically, she is back to her post-college days but with no direction or real partner. Rory has also taken up a bizarre habit of stress tap dancing in the middle of the night. She has a perplexing one-night stand with a man dressed as a wookiee from a comic convention. Similarly to her mother, she has moved from quirky to obnoxious. Lorelai and Rory also have a few scenes where they are body shaming people at the pool and acting above everyone else in town, which is not a good look. In the end, Rory decides to write a book about her and her mother, which is cute and all but is the final proof that she has failed at her job as a journalist. She and Lorelai also stop speaking when Rory insists on writing the book despite Lorelai’s disapproval. They fight for apparently no reason other than to provide some drama to the storyline. We also never know if Rory ends up completing the novel. The disaster culminates in her admitting she is pregnant with a child of unknown paternity in the final scene. Basically, she is a hot mess from beginning to end, ruining the comradery I had felt with her growing up. The writers of this spinoff missed the boat. What could have been a cute addition to the original series was just a huge disappointment and quite frankly depressing to watch. Honestly, it has tainted my positive view of the original Gilmore Girls. If you are a Gilmore Girls fan, DO NOT WATCH A Year in the Life. It will ruin the series for you!