The Enduring Autumn Coziness of Gilmore Girls

The post The Enduring Autumn Coziness of Gilmore Girls appeared first on Consequence .

After feeling even the slightest hint of a cool breeze in the air, there’s only one reasonable thing to do. Hop in — it’s time to head back to Stars Hollow.

During its initial run from 2000 to 2007, Gilmore Girls successfully charmed audiences with Lauren Graham ‘s rapid-fire delivery, the absolute gift that is the character of Emily Gilmore ( Kelly Bishop ), highly relatable family drama, Melissa McCarthy in her breakout role, and the endless fun of debating the proper ranking for Rory’s boyfriends (but just to get it out of the way, this is not a safe space for any Dean defenders).

The show has remained a fixture on Netflix, allowing people to revisit as they please and providing ample opportunity for younger generations to enjoy the warmth that always seems to radiate from the opening credits and the background “la la las.” There’s something about Gilmore Girls that makes it endlessly re-watchable; it is, perhaps, the peak comfort show. And despite the fact that Lorelai (Graham) retains a special connection to the winter months — snow, most especially — Gilmore Girls is often most associated with fall.

Gilmore Girls was filmed on the Warner Brothers lot in Los Angeles, but thanks to the consistently stellar set decoration and immersive costuming, some of the most memorable episodes of the show are the ones that take place when leaves are falling and bonfires are are roaring. As often as Lorelai and Rory stroll through the town square on their way to Luke’s, it all feels slightly better when the gazebo features a pumpkin or two.

Memory is a funny thing and nostalgia is a powerful force, though, and over the course of its seven seasons and 153 episodes, Gilmore Girls only featured a total of 30 episodes overtly set in autumn. Part of the reason the association remains so strong seems to be that many of the most memorable episodes fall within that range.

Season 3 gifts us with “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?,” which features the iconic 24-hour dance marathon where Rory and Dean notably call it quits: The dance marathon is the sort of set piece where showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino thrived (her later work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel offered further proof that directing a musical may still be calling to her), but this episode was also peppered with the side characters that made Stars Hollow feel so real and vibrant. Two episodes later, it’s Thanksgiving, and Rory and Lorelai are bouncing between four different celebrations.

It makes sense that Gilmore Girls was shot on Midwest Street, the largest of the backlot studio sets on the Warner Brothers lot. Episodes like the quadruple Thanksgiving jaunt feature extensive footage of our titular girls weaving through the town, trees in the background decked in vibrant oranges and reds to conjure late autumn in Connecticut. It’s a reminder of how some aspects of the creative process in filming television and movies remain the best ones even after decades of innovation; there’s something so much more tangible about the facade sets of Stars Hollow than a half-hearted cul-de-sac that has to be filled in with CGI.

There’s a reason Luke’s diner still feels like the sort of coffee shop that could be found in any real Connecticut small town (this writer happened to be born and raised in the Nutmeg State, so it’s not a confirmation given lightly). The same goes for the gazebo and the Kim’s store; it’s that these were real setups for our actors to walk through, some having arrived on the Warner lot as early as 1962 when The Music Man was filmed. Why mess with a great thing?

Gilmore Girls reportedly operated on a fairly tight budget — Sherman-Palladino once went so far as to say the show had “zero money,” recalling that other programs filming on the lot would send over leftover props to see if they had any use to the Gilmore Girls crew. But at the end of the day, most episodes of this show — with their warm lighting, believable attire, and familiar backdrops — still look better than many of the high-budget productions landing on streaming today. The show was shot on film, rather than digital, and the warm, slightly grainy quality only aids in ramping up the nostalgia factor.

The same sentiment applies to the lengthy seasons offered by the show. Each season offered over 20 installments, a rarity in the programming that’s at the forefront of the television conversation these days. ( Hacks , a show I absolutely adore, only delivered nine episodes in its most recent season!) Having the luxury of so many episodes meant Gilmore Girls could mirror the rhythms of the year, a flow underscored by Rory being in school for (almost) the show’s entire run. Related: where is Milo Ventimiglia’s honorary Emmy for the inspired delivery of, “ Why did you drop out of Yale ?”

Either way, with time to unravel plot threads over the course of almost an entire year, scenes of college tours, move-in days, and football tailgating arrive in abundance over the course of the original seven seasons. The start of autumn means it’s back-to-school season, which means it’s time, once again, to see how Rory handles her teenage and young adult trials. (Spoiler: Kinda badly, most of the time.)

There was a comfort to the way television used to lean much harder on mirroring the calendar of the viewer, kicking off with fall premieres and taking us through narratives that reflected our own experiences in the real world. The cast and crew of Gilmore Girls committed to make this happen, which meant shooting autumnal scenes during the heat of a Los Angeles summer — Melissa McCarthy even once revealed that someone passed out during a photo shoot where everyone had to be dressed in layers and fluffy coats.

Just because a show featured a handful of episodes set during the season doesn’t automatically make something a mandatory fall rewatch, so what is it about Gilmore Girls that pushes it into that territory? It’s the same details that bring When Harry Met Sally… to the top of the roster, too, despite the fact that some of the most enduring lines from that movie take place on New Years Eve: It’s that the stakes always feel manageable. (The abundance of cable sweaters might just be a bonus.)

Even when their lives are at their worst, the characters of Gilmore Girls aren’t suffering in the way we see on a show like Game of Thrones , nor are they spiraling the way they do on The Bear — except, perhaps, for any time Emily Gilmore has to interact with her mother-in-law. And fall is a time to surrender to the chaos that typically defines a summer season and return to what’s familiar.

So many factors had to align for Gilmore Girls to earn its long-lasting magic, including the ability of its core cast to pivot between the comedy and drama that could have felt forced or cartoonish in different hands. Without these elements, would we have ever experienced moments like The Festival of Living Art, where the dusk chill is almost palpable through the screen? What about our introduction to The Life and Death Brigade, where Rory capitalizes on one of her first weekends back at Yale to get closer to Logan (objectively a better option than Dean, but still not a Jess, but this really is a conversation for another time)?

This is by no means a perfect show, and on a different day we can dig into the outrageous fatphobia, or everything about the April plotline, but that day is not today. Today it is finally cool enough to have the windows open, which means a cup of coffee is in hand and Season 1, Episode 5 is already queued.

Gilmore Girls is streaming now on Netflix.

Thanks for reading! If you’d like, you can also check out our Gilmore Girls -themed Consequence Crossword below.

The Enduring Autumn Coziness of Gilmore Girls
Mary Siroky