‘Gilmore Girls’ reboot will be home in time for Thanksgiving
It’s the jolt of news that has “Gilmore Girls” fans more wired than if they had just sipped coffee from Luke’s Diner: a premiere date for the revival has at long last been announced.
“Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” will premiere globally on Netflix on Nov. 25 — making the four 90-minute chapters available to binge in the U.S. just in time for Thanksgiving break. On Wednesday, Netflix released the first trailer for the series.
And executive producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino are well aware fans are eager for the big reveal: those oh-so-mysterious last four words that Sherman-Palladino has long said she wanted to use to end the series.
But when the wife-and-husband duo took the stage Wednesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills — joined by actors Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel and Scott Patterson — they warned against skipping ahead.
“It would be great if people who wanted to see the last four words first got some therapy before it actually aired,” said Sherman-Palladino, who created the original series and produces, writes and directs the new chapters for Netflix. “It really is a journey to those last four words. It’s going to mean a lot more. That being said, what can I do? I would hope that people would want to take the whole trip. It’s a fun trip. It’s worth it. There’s peanuts!”
The series, known for its rapid-fire dialogue and heavy dose of pop culture references, ran for seven seasons on the WB/CW from 2000 to 2007. With the revival, viewers catch up with single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Graham) and her daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel), in present time and follows them over the course of a year. Each installment spans the course of a season in the calendar year.
“It was literally like no time had passed,” Graham said of slipping back into the role of Lorelai. “It was not difficult. It was easy. It was joyous. It was exhilarating. It was the old show.”
But a grown-up version of the old show.
“It’s not a story about a little girl anymore who is in high school,” Graham said. “It’s a story about a young woman.… They’ve grown up while still being the same.”
Sherman-Palladino added: “It’s two women. Chicks going through stuff. Suddenly they can have cocktail together. They can sit and drink and talk about ....”
Of course, finding those signature Stars Hollow spots for gabfests proved to be a challenge. After the series ended, the set on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank was refurbished to accommodate other productions, most notably “Pretty Little Liars.”
“They changed our Stars Hollow!” Sherman-Palladino said. “I think they got a deal on brown paint. I’ve never seen so much brown paint in my entire life. It still had the sidewalks we put in there, but we had to go back in and zhush it up.”
Helping to make things look and feel familiar are many of the original cast members — 37 to be exact. They include Kelly Bishop as Lorelai Gilmore’s mother, Emily, Keiko Agena as Rory’s BFF Lane Kim, and Yanic Truesdale as perpetually annoyed Dragonfly Inn partner Michel Gerard.
But no one created more headlines than Melissa McCarthy, who will return as Sookie St. James. A return that seemed like it almost wouldn’t happen when McCarthy responded to a disheartened fan on Twitter that she wasn’t invited to return — spurring speculation of tension.
“We always knew, amongst us and amongst her, we knew we were going to figure it out,” Sherman-Palladino said. “Everyone wants everyone to hate each other now. They want cage fights at the Democratic Convention. It’s an age of ugliness and how do we stir up bad feelings.”
Twitter: @villarrealy
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