Okay, I can’t be the only Doper who watches Gilmore Girls, and who caught the season premiere last night.
My thoughts:
The TV gods were exceptionally cruel this year, what with Gilmore Girls, Buffy, and Undeclared sharing a time slot. Since I can tape one while watching another, it’s the newbie, Undeclared, that I’ll be missing this season.
As for GG itself, I thought the premiere was great. One of the things this show does exceptionally well is scenes of discomfort. Richard grilling Dean and Emily coldly reacting to Lorelai’s announcement were painful but compelling. Rory’s garden chat with Richard was sweet, though; Herrmann conveyed Richard’s reserved remorse very well.
Max is, unfortunately, rather dull. Max is, fortunately, not in the opening credits.
The Lane subplot was a bit overdone, only because we all know she’ll be coming back from Korea at some point. I’ll be surprised if she actually hated it. Nice scene between her and Rory when she dropped off her CDs, though.
The contrast between Emily and Lorelai’s way of dealing with people was demonstrated very well in this episode. Emily’s afraid of losing contact with Lorelai, but reacts to her eventual wedding announcement in a way guaranteed to push Lorelai even further away. Lorelai finds out that Sookie unknowlingly spilled the beans to Emily, and her face illustrates both her pain and her forgiveness, neither of which she tells Sookie. Very nicely done, and well acted on Lauren Graham’s part.
The final scene between Lorelai and Emily made me teary. The performances on this show are almost uniformly excellent; those that aren’t are just very good.
Yep, another addict checking in. This show has the best dialog on TV since Cupid.
What got me about this episode was Luke. Luke is now my official hero. I admit, he is, emotionally speaking, dumb as a post. But he’s a good, strong man, willing to put aside his feelings to make sure he’s not hurting the woman he loves. The ketchup scene in this episode was a masterpiece of understatment and subtext. What got to me most, though, was the scene of Luke sitting, watching Lorelai dance with Max, all the while being watched intently by those three miniature brides. Slightly surreal, deeply touching, strangely significant; brought to mind the Muses, the Fates, his former lover… Have I mentioned I love this show?
I’m hoping this season mellows out Rory. Her overreaction to her lack of extracurricular credit was seriously overdone, to the point of annoyingly psychotic. I understand that she’s obsessed; I just thought she was smart as well. Smart enough to figure out that she can tackle problems like that better during business hours, and spend some time with her boyfriend.
And I do like the repartee Lorelai has going with Max, but there doesn’t seem to be any depth to their relationship.
So, is Rory going to replace the void left by Lane w/ Paris & friends, or shall we get a new character? (I really want some new characters!!!)
The only part I disliked was when Lorelai was going to tell Luke about the engagement, and practically the whole town was following her. A little too much on the surreal side for me. It’s so much better when it’s real.
I’ve only caught two episodes last season but I really liked it. However we will be watching Buffy for now and no we can not tape one channel while watching another.
I bet we’ll skip ahead pretty soon – I doubt Lane will be gone for more than an episode or two in show time, even if she’s gone the whole summer. She’s still in the opening credits, after all.
I liked that Madeleine (I think that’s her name – Paris’ brunette groupie) broke ranks and talked to Rory despite Paris’ disapproval.
And I agree with the comment about Star’s Hollow’s too-cutesy moments, but this show handles those much better than does Ed. Amy Sherman-Palladino has done a good job of using the town and making it charming without often crossing the line into making it a cavalcade of quirky folk. She missteps occasionally, but not too often.
I’ve only seen a part of one episode, but I do like to tell people how I met the mother at a party. At the time the series was just starting so I had no idea who she was, but she was nice looking in leather pants I do recall. Rob Zombie was also there. Not to name drop , because those are really the only two people of note I have ever met.
I was a bit disappointed in the first episode (don’t hate me). I hope that the show doesn’t become drama queenish, like Felicity. And last year the writing was so good (definitely the best on TV), but this episode seemed a bit forced. Still, it is better than almost everything else on TV. I just hope they realize that we don’t need huge dramatic turns to tune in; what most people like (I think) is the excellent writing and great characters.
BTW, another excellent show (though very different) is SCRUBS. So damn funny I almost peed myself. Check it out if you haven’t already.
Zebra: Is your problem just that you have digital cable? Because that can be solved with a splitter, an A/V box, and a couple extra lengths of coaxial cable. And it’s perfectly legal . My cable company supplied the extra equipment free of charge when I told them what it was for.
You can’t tape a digital program, while watching a different digital program ( because the digital tuner only decodes one station at a time ) unless you get a second tuner. But you can watch a digital channel or analog channel, while taping a different analog channel, because all the analog channels are still coming down the same pipe. You just have run separate cables ( hence the splitter ) from the wall into the digital tuner and vcr, then run them back through an a/v box into your tv. Simple as pie and it saves a lot of frustration .
Ah, just finished with both the season premiere and the second episode, because I taped the season premiere and…well, they’re all going to mush together, because I saw one followed by t’other.
Max is a bit boring, I must admit. They should spice him up…make him a bit sexy. He’s also a control freak…ahh. That whole “What should I do about Rory and Dean” thing. Actually Dean’s a bit boring himself…and a bit whipped. He doesn’t seem to have a life apart from Rory. I always preferred Tristan. Sure, he’s kind of a prick, but far sexier.
Since when have Rory and Lorelai had contact with Rory’s dad? Was this in an earlier episode that I missed, because I thought they were cut off from him.
I guess it was kind of obvious that Lorelai and Max wouldn’t get married. I kind of hope she and Luke date…I definitely prefer him to Max.
Yeah, Rory’s flipping out was kind of annoying. You’d think she’d already know that Harvard wants all that crap. Speaking of her school chums…Paris just gets creepier in every episode. God…<shudder>
Ah - you missed Christopher Returns? One of my favorite episodes from first season - so glad to see him again last night, I think he is mighty fine. Try to catch this episode when it reruns - don’t want to spoil it for you, but I just love it. I actually like Christopher more than Luke - I am getting to like Luke more, but I don’t want the whole “let’s put these two together because they were written to be together” thing. I don’t like where a show puts two people on and expects us to want them to be together. Let the show go, and see what chemistry develops. I prefer Chandler and Monica to Rachel and Ross, and Spike and Buffy to Angel and Buffy.
As for Dean - he’s alright, but I definitely agree that Tristan is much hotter. Yum!
Oh, I’ll have to try and see that. Sounds like an interesting twist.
If they develop the Luke thing more, I think it has potential. The whole shot of Lorelai and Luke (see? The alliteration, it was meant to be! :)) in the hopa at the end was kind of sweet…maybe a tad corny, though.
I wonder where Loralai and Rory will head off to now that she’s escaping? (Poor Rory…could you imagine one of your teachers being your stepfather? Ack!)
By the power of Grayskull, I resurrect this thread!
So I missed last weeks episode but was able to watch last night’s episode. Good stuff for the most part.
Luke’s nephew is inherrently uninteresting to me. As soon as I read the season preview that revealed “Luke’s troubled teen nephew comes to live with him.”, I said to myself, “This is so close to shark jumping.”
Oh wow an angst-ridden troubled teen intellectual.
This character has been done before and is really just a cheap way to add tension to the show.
“Next week on Gilmore Girl’s, Jess gets Rory to drink.”
“Next week on Gilmore Girl’s, Jess takes Rory to the big city without telling Lorelai.”
The only two decent things that involved him on the show were his first glimpse of Star’s Hollow while Elvis Costello sings, “This is Hell.” and when Luke pushed him off the bridge. It was a really great moment.
And what happened to Dean? Was he just not in this episode or did they break up last episode? If so, I guess a break up gets easier after the second time.
So Tristan is still around we’ll just never see him becasue he’s on Dawson’s Creek now? Obviously Tristan was supposed to be Rory’s ‘Christopher’ so I don’t understand why they let him move to another show and brought in Fonzie.
Madeline included Tristan in part of her gossipy diatribe but I lost what she said in the flood of goop.
Does anybody else think that Lorelei hasn’t actually spoken to Max since before the road trip? Did she just stand him up? Did Max, his best man, family and friends show up at the church and find absolutely nobody else there? Are they trying to make Lorelei look that mean intentionally?
I didn’t get that impression. Didn’t she mention to Rory as they were about to take their road trip that she’d spoken to Max? Anyway, I think Rory would’ve been far more uncomfortable talking to Max at all if Lorelai had actually left him at the altar.
Luke’s nephew has the potential to be very, very bad. As a character, and an addition to the show. I’m hoping that they pull him out of the overly caricatured death spiral depicted in this first episode. Did anyone not see his being a big “Howl” fan coming a mile away?
And this:
“I thought you said you didn’t read a lot.”
“What’s a lot?”
Ugh. But I’m hoping I’m supposed to be rolling my eyes, and I certainly can’t say I didn’t know faux Beat-Zen hipsters when I was in high school, so Jessie’s at least grounded in the familiar.
I love Paris, though, and her Wile E. Coyote-esque tendencies to “sabotage” Rory in ways that work to Rory’s advantage. I also appreciate that Rory deals with Paris – she doesn’t complain to teachers, she just swings at Paris’ pitches and gets them out of the ballpark as often as not.
One more point to ponder: why add Dean to the opening credits if they’re not going to do anything with him?
I agree, actually. At the end of the show, after Jess figured out the “Dodger” reference in a few seconds, I turned to my wife and said, “So, how many episodes do you think before Jess and Dean get into a fistfight?”
Her guess: 2.
I don’t know that it’ll actually go the fistfight route, but we’re obviously headed for some confrontations.
It’s just kind of funny that Dean’s in the credits, but has appeared in just a couple of episodes in a relatively minor role. But the season’s young.
Murder Stars Hollow style, talking about Luke’s nephew
Taylor says something about him stealing a gnome,
Miss Patty says he (the nephew) hooted one of her dance classes.
Then Loreli pipes up in from the back: "I heard that he controls the weather and wrote the screenplay to Glitter"
Funniest line from last night’s episode (funny being defined as, I laughed so hard my wife woke up and I had to rewind so she could see what I was laughing about)…
Lorelei: … and they want me to chaperone dances…
Rory: Do they know you got pregnant at 16?
. My cable company supplied the extra equipment free of charge when I told them what it was for.