Gilmore Girls: The Series

I don’t always go for family-drama comedy television series, but that one time I did, it was Gilmore Girls. By the time I was exposed to the show, it was chugging along towards its final seasons. Held against my will, my friendly lady neighbors plugged in their DVDs of Season One, and we were off to the races (I’d made them watch I don’t know how many movies of questionable value, so it was their turn). At first, I was intrigued. I thought the plucky, fast-paced dialog was entertaining, but after a few episodes, I was thoroughly charmed by the exploits of Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), her teenage daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), and their seemingly idyllic life in Stars Hollow, Connecticut (the famed Midwest Street on the Warner backlot). 

Known for its plucky, fast-paced, witty dialogue exchanges, Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel, crafted an intricate little world for our characters to occupy. As fast as the jokes and movie references flew, the events of the series were content to take their time to unfold at their own pace. As Lorelai attempts to manage her career as a hotel owner with her best chef friend Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) and her “will-they-won’t-they” attraction to diner owner Luke (Scott Patterson), Rory is balancing her scholastic aspirations against her own budding love life. Caught in between are Lorelai’s semi-estranged parents, Richard (Edward Herrmann) and Emily (Kelly Bishop), and their weekly family dinners. 

And the show lasted for seven seasons. I’d argue that was probably two seasons longer than it should have run. While those seven years completed the arc of Rory finishing high school and getting through college, the stories in Season Six, and especially in Season Seven (after Sherman-Palladino’s contract wasn’t renewed), felt paint-by-numbers and forced. Worse, I felt tired of our characters and their seemingly endless series of poor choices and stakeless consequences just to keep the episode count rolling. This is where I back one of my old production and story professors’ assertions that a good show should only last between three and five seasons. Glimore Girls hit a peak and then slowly stumbled to a conclusion. It was an okay conclusion, but it also felt hollow given the background uncertainty about a possible Season Eight so it's final moment barely counts as a finale.

But like all shows that get canceled/end abruptly, time, streaming, and another network gave rise to the four 90-minute episode run of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Less episodic and more TV-Movie-of-the-Week, the structure of these return adventures might have been a bit of a departure, but they were a nice return to Stars Hollow. I liked that despite the several-year gap, the show still had its heart front and center; it was content to tell a story with a lot going on over a very long period. From Spring through Winter, the seasons push the revival's events forward as Rory grapples with her own professional and personal crises, while Lorelai and Luke forge ahead in their relationship, and Emily reels from the sudden loss of her husband. If there’s one thing I didn’t really take to with this revival, it's the sort of fan-service determined to shoehorn in every single character from the series, even if only for only a few seconds. As the revival went on, it’d get distracted by the cameos. But, like the best revivals, it brings a sense of finality while also leaving the door open a crack for another return. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
After a nice run on streaming, Gilmore Girls: The Series reenters the physical media scene for its first complete Blu-ray release. All seven seasons and the revival A Year in the Life episodes are spread over 30 Region Free BD50 discs. The downside of the packaging is that the discs are housed in two oversized Epik Pak cases and held together with a paper slipcase. Each case insert art offers a disc breakdown with each episode and a list of bonus features for the season. Each disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options.

Apologies for the lack of photos at this time - a tech snafu occurred and am in the process of sorting out the issue. When I can, I aim to circle back and add pics from the various seasons and revival. 

Now the 1080p disc upgrades of Gilmore Girls: The Series are something of a mixed bag. Not necessarily in a bad way, but there are things to discuss. Generally speaking, the episodes and the revival look pretty damn good on disc. The “however” is that the earlier the episodes, the rougher they are. The series was largely shot on 16mm (at least the first seasons, not sure if they later updated to 35mm or not), but the first three seasons were initially presented in 1.33:1. For Season 4, WB moved the series to 1.78:1 since widescreen televisions had become more dominant by then.

Initially, when the series came to DVD, the first seasons were in true 1.33:1. When the series was picked up for streaming by Netflix in 2014, the first three seasons were reformatted to 1.78:1 - and that’s where things get a bit dodgy. The first three seasons, while nicely detailed, are also noticeably noisier looking than the remainder of the series. I’m not sure of the reframing process, and I don’t have the old DVDs available to compare, but on Blu-ray, these episodes do look like they were cropped and blown up to fit the screen. 

Film grain just looks a bit too chunky for my liking. 16mm is a unique look, and as we’ve seen in other Blu-ray and 4K releases of films in the format, it takes care to make it look good. Without being too damning, the first three seasons look a little slapdash. Not terrible, but I’d be curious what a new scan of the film elements could do with the reframing. When the set moves into Season 4 and beyond, it’s much more stable, sharper, and more cleanly detailed, without the heavier, noisy grain issue. Overall, things look pretty darn good, but I’d have loved to see this series given a little more room to breathe. Most of the main season discs have six episodes on them, and that’s a lot of material to squeeze down to a simple BD50 disc. 

The Year in the Life revival episodes look to be the same two discs that Warner Archive previously issued, which weren’t bad, but they’re also not knock-your-hair-back great either. My biggest issue was some oddball compression but worse was how flat they could look for a modern release. Overall, the series marks a decent debut on Blu-ray, but for the main series, I wish they’d stayed true to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Similar to the video, the audio package for the series shifts - but not in any kind of detrimental way. Seasons One through Five are in DTS-HD MA 2.0, and they sound great. I believe there are a couple of song swaps, as I sampled through the discs, some of the cues for some of the pop tunes didn’t sound quite right. I haven’t heard/seen any confirmation of that, so that could be my old brain working wrong. Otherwise, these first five seasons sound great in 2.0. Clean dialog. Great music. Active soundscape for all scenarios. They work great. 

When we get into Seasons Six and Seven, the CW years, the show upgrades the soundstage to DTS-HD MA 5.1, and they’re pretty good if also somewhat perfunctory. The show didn’t suddenly become bigger and more active than the previous five seasons, so the move to a full 5.1 experience doesn’t always land. It’s still mostly a front/center-focused experience letting the cracking dialog own the stage. Aside from some particularly active random scenes and sequences, the surrounds really only serve as ambient effects and other elements. Nothing distinctly immersive. Likewise, the Year in the Life episodes come in at DTS-HD MA 5.1. And like those last two main series seasons, the surround channels continue to serve the ambient activity while the main punch hits through the front/center range. Which is fine. It’s a talky show, and there’s not a lot of big explosive action. It’d be something if Rory parachuted into Stars Hollow under the cover of heavy flak and anti-aircraft missiles ahead of the land invasion, but that obviously didn’t happen in the series. Like the lifestyle the series wasn’t to portray, the 5.1 surround tracks are nice and effectively quaint.

On the bonus features front, we’re getting most of the archival extras that were included on the old DVDs. To that, though, I think there are some collections of deleted scenes and one episode commentary track that didn’t make the leap over. Again, I don’t have those DVD discs readily available anymore, but I remember them being around. Sadly, the booklets of the numerous random and obscure pop culture references didn’t return. 

Season One

• Welcome to the Gilmore Girls
• Gilmore Goodies and Gossip - Rory’s Dance: On-Screen Factoids
• Gilmore-isms

Season Two

• A Film By Kirk
• International Success: How Other Countries Welcome the Gilmore Girls
• Gilmore Goodies and Gossip - A-Tisket, A-Tasket: On- Screen Factoids
• Who Wants to Argue? 

Season Three 

• All Grown Up
• Who Wants to Fall in Love
• Our Favorite ‘80s

Season Four

• Gilmore Goodies and Gossip
• Who Wants to Get Together

Season Five

• Gilmore Girls Turns 100
• Behind the Scenes of the 100th Episode
• Who Wants to Talk Gilmore

Season Seven

• Gilmore Fashionistas
• A Best Friend’s Peek Inside the Gilmore Girls with Keiko Agena
• Who Wants to Talk Boys?
• Kirk’s Tour of Stars Hollow

Here I go again, precariously courting that fickle bitch known as nostalgia. Two decades ago, when I discovered the show, I thought it was a fine piece of family comedy/drama entertainment. I’d earlier written it off as a “chick’s show,” but once I was forced to give it a chance, I found it to be pleasantly relatable and entertaining. There was a time when I owned all of the DVD sets. That was a long time ago, with many location moves and format upgrades along the way. As it had been the better end of 10-15 years since I worked all the way through the show, I was looking forward to this revisit on Blu-ray. I’m pleased to say that a lot of the series holds up nicely. I don’t think I’m as excited about it as I used to be, but it’s still a nice piece of comfort entertainment. At least for those first few seasons. The more I watched of Seasons Six and Seven, the more it reinforced my view that the show should have stopped at Five. 

On Blu-ray, the series enjoys a decent upgrade to 1080p. Depending on the season, the visual upgrade can range from mild to impressive. The audio tracks for each season is spot on without any trouble there, even if the later episode 5.1 tracks aren’t that aggressive. If you’re a fan of the entirety of the series and have been eager to own the show in 1080p, this set should take care of you without having to endure stressful Friday dinners with your parents. But if you’re new to the series, I’d strongly recommend streaming a season or two to make sure you want to take the plunge. For Fans Only. 

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