‘Gilmore Girls’ Netflix Revival: What the Critics Are Saying
The return to Stars Hollow is here!
Netflix finally released all four mini-movies in the Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life revival series at midnight today, much to the delight of Gilmore Girls fans everywhere. The heartwarming comedy-drama ran for seven seasons on The WB and The CW from 2000 to 2007 and made Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham household names.
In the years since the show's end on television, fans have been wondering how series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino would have ended the story, as she was let go from the show's final season on The CW after creative differences with the network. With the Netflix revival, Sherman-Palladino took the opportunity to write the concluding chapter that she always envisioned, including the famous final four words that she had envisioned for the show since the beginning.
So do the new adventures of Lorelai Gilmore (Graham) and her daughter Rory (Bledel) live up to expectations?
Below are some of the quotes from critic reviews of the new (and final?) series.
It’s a better, bolder, more fulfilling capper to a beloved series that finished just-okay back in 2007, produced without creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and husband Daniel Palladino.
“A Year in the Life” is a triumph. Engineered — or rather re-engineered — for an emotional wallop as much as for laughs, this is a big-hearted, generous, deeply felt gift to fans who years ago were left wondering about all the what-might-have -beens.
As always, Gilmore is not without its frustrations, which means that those who always found the constant babble and the flights of fancy unbearably twee will continue to do so. There are plots that just peter out, abruptly change course, or get lost in some eye-roll-inducing diversion..Yet for every misstep, there’s a moment from Graham or Bledel that makes you laugh or breaks your heart.
“A Year in the Life” succeeds at recreating the voice of “Gilmore Girls,” which is what creates the world of “Gilmore Girls.”
Time:
It’s not a throwback—it’s flat-out anachronistic, and watching it I felt less nostalgia than confusion as to whether or not my apartment had become a time machine. The show is effectively critic-proof—there is nothing I can say that will keep the show’s fans from streaming it over the long holiday weekend. And yet, because A Year in the Life is not the first revival of a beloved TV property that falls flat and will hardly be the last, I feel compelled to note that the show’s very existence bummed me out.
It’s not perfect. It’s actually far from perfect. The revival has four 90-minute chapters, and it turns out that 42-minute episodes were the perfect amount of time before the famously sparkling dialogue and wacky plotlines start to drag — and characters’ flaws go from endearing to irritating.