Full of empty coffee cups, small town charm, and the fast-paced banter that defined the original show, “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” does not miss a beat in the premiere of this long awaited four-part revival.
Staying true to the original plotline of the lives of a mom and a daughter who are best friends, the first episode opens with a scene of Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) in the center of the town they have called their home since the start of the original show.

Both Graham and Bledel seamlessly slip back into the quick pace of the dialogue, allowing you to forget that the show hasn’t been on for nine years.
A major part of the series shows Rory in her early thirties, appearing a bit lost in life. Her original dreams of becoming a journalist are no longer working out for her and while this could create sympathy from the viewers, her whiny tone and often immature and immoral actions cause what was once a lovable character to come off as annoying and frustrating throughout many parts of the show.
Lorelai, however, is the same as she was throughout the seven seasons of the original show, offering a remarkable amount of witty comments in every scene. Graham does a great job slipping back into character, balancing the new development of Lorelai’s awareness of her mortality and growing age with the clever banter that made people initially fall in love with the show when it started 16 years ago.
The show followed the lives of single mother Lorelai and her daughter Rory, who she had when she was just 16. The series sucessfully highlighted their unconventional relationship as one more between best friends than between mother and daughter, as well as Lorelai’s strained relationship with her own parents, who came from a very different, much wealthier community than the one in which she raised Rory.
Perhaps the most hard-hitting and emotional plotline in the revival is that of Lorelai’s mother, Emily Gilmore, as she struggles with the death of her husband and partner in life for 50 years. As Richard Herrmann, the actor portraying Emily’s husband, died in 2014, the show did a good job handling his death with respect. How the characters handle this death in the show became a driving plotline for the more emotional aspects of the revival.

Seeing the three Gilmore girls struggle with the loss of one of their most beloved family members was heartbreaking at times, but in the true style of the show, was often mixed with quick-witted humor to offer relief.

One of the biggest shortcomings in the revival was the longer episode lengths. Broken up into four 90-minute episodes, “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” was double the length of the original episodes. As the show mainly consists of fast-paced scenes that don’t often fit together all that smoothly, the longer episodes can quickly become tiresome.

Almost all recurring characters on the original series were able to make some sort of appearance throughout the four-episode revival. Lorelai’s best friend Sookie, however, portrayed by Melissa McCarthy, was shown in only one scene, and in true McCarthy fashion, left the viewers laughing and wanting more.
The final four words of the show, supposedly known by creator Amy Sherman-Palladino since even before the original series was finished, were enough to leave any viewer wanting and hoping for more.
Although the ending may leave a lot up in the air, one thing is for sure—the Gilmore girls still hold the ability to make us laugh and cry and watch their lives on the screen as intensely as if they were our own.