The Gilmore Girls

This column first appeared in The Age on April 24, 2004

I have dithered over reviewing The Gilmore Girls despite the fact it is prime time Saturday night viewing (Channel 9, 7.30pm) because its origins are murky. As one friend put it, 'Didn't it start as a Nescafe ad, or something?' Not quite, but it was the first series to come out of the Family Friendly Programming Forum, a consortium set up by advertisers like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson to fund shows that parents and children can watch together. Another show developed by the same group is the loathsome Seventh Heaven.

But here's the shock. It's good. And while its dialogue can be overly snappy and fast- as it is in many American shows - it is also intelligent and amusing. Like the scene a couple of weeks when Lorelai -who is renovating a historical building - gets into an argument with a local councilor about the definition of history. 'It's a 23 year old porch. Unless you think Kate Hudson's historical it's not historical.'

The Gilmore Girls is about the sisterly relationship between 32-year-old Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her 16-year-old daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel). As Salon magazine said when the series began back in 2000, it is a pleasant surprise to find that the consortium's definition of 'family friendly' was broad enough to include a show about a girl who got pregnant at 16, raised a great kid as a single mom and didn't go straight to hell.

A more cynical reviewer pointed out that it's good ratings to define a family as a unit composed of two young, beautiful, sexually available women. I surveyed a group of males (okay, three brothers) on this point, and yes, it's true. Tom (22) and Peter (25) want to sleep with Lorelai 'because she's a bit more naughty than goody-goody Rory and she has hot blue eyes and looks very good in a pair of jeans.' Rob (nearly 17) likes Rory for her mind. Rob also made it very clear that you can't really have a favorite because Lorelai and Rory go together. Apart from that, they watch the show because it's fun, and deep - but not too deep. It is, apparently, essential viewing in preparation of Saturday night parties and conversation.

The Gilmore Girls can be annoying at times. The relentless chumminess between mother and daughter becomes cute and unconvincing. Nor could you call this show 'realistic'. Lorelei did the hard yards as a single mum before the series began, so there is no overt suffering. She and Rory live in a little town in Connecticut called Stars Hollow and Lorelai's parents are wealthy. This all means the show hits two demographics with one stone: the upper class are ever-present good guys as well as the butt of gentle humored jokes because Lorelei is street wise, leading to scenes like when the grandmother breaks into Rory's dorm at Yale and refurnishes it in $25,000 worth of furnishings. Rory gets to winge about the invasion of privacy, Lorelei gets to joke about the room smelling of 'Chanel and guilt' and the show gets to have a nicely furnished set for all the dorm scenes. Yes, I mock, but I watch as well.

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