Mariah Carey is excellent at any time of the year but there’s something particularly special about her at Christmas, and in a similar vein, Gilmore Girls is a comfort watch in every month, but in autumn, it reaches another level of lure.
Fans of the classic 00s TV show have long participated in a seasonal tradition of clicking play on season one, episode one on September 1. But how did the 2000 series become directly associated with three months of the year?
The concept isn’t particularly autumnal – a comedy-drama about the exploits of close single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and daughter Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), who share a very close bond. It’s a story of romance, complicated family dynamics, and trying to make a mark on the world.
However, despite originally airing 24 years ago, it’s kept his popularity, in part to its association with fall.
In Neilson’s streaming roundup, the series made the top 10 charts for a total of 65 of 104 weeks in 2022 and 2023 – nearly half of the show’s chart appearances were between September and December.
With autumn fully underway, social media is filled with fans rejoicing at their annual rewatch. ‘Gilmore girls literally own autumn & you can’t tell me otherwise,’ wrote Mack on X. Azzie Wainwright added: ‘Ah, the perfect season for cozy nights and witty banter. Nothing like the charm of Stars Hollow in the fall.’
Here’s why Gilmore Girls and autumn will forever be one…
An autumn trip provided inspiration for Gilmore Girls
To truly understand how Gilmore Girls won the title of the ultimate autumnal series, you have to rewind all the way back to it’s origins.
The association was truly written in the stars as the series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino took a trip to Connecticut at that time of the year, when the vibe hit her in the face. It was this vacation that led to the beloved show being born.
‘I encountered that small-town feel, that feel of hayrides and pumpkin patches and hot apple cider. It almost felt ridiculous — the jaded woman that I am, I was like “This is like central casting laid this out for us. People don’t live like this.” But they do in some places, and that creatively fed me the rest of the show,’ she recalled to Hollywood Reporter.
‘When we shot the pilot, it was fall and it was cold and had that feeling, so it just sort of became our thing.’ It certainly did!
Realising that it was working for them, Amy then purposefully made a rule that they would always spiritually coincide with one particular beverage.
‘Whenever the pumpkin spice latte [came out], we had to be out there,’ she promised herself.
Summer doesn’t really exist in Stars Hollow
In their town of Stars Hollow, summer or anything linked to it isn’t really a thing. Aside from during, Netflix miniseries revival, A Year in the Life, it is skipped right over.
We’ll hear about what they got up to during a catchup Friday night dinner, usually at the start of a new season. It could have been a trip to Europe, or road trip through USA, but we won’t see it, and the ongoings are truly inconsequential. Nothing that happens between June and August is of any concern to the fans.
Instead, we’ll join the women as they are preparing for a new academic year, which typically happens in September for most people.
This perfectly linked with when the series originally began – it always kicked off right in the depths of autumn. For those around for the TV run, our brains are hardwired to put the two things together.
You’ll never hear Lorelai and Rory complain about autumn either. They embrace everything that it has to offer, from fresh starts to nights on the sofa eating Chinese takeaways, and that is uplifting for the viewers living in the same conditions.
Rather than feeling jealous watching people frolic on a beach, or drinking cocktails on a rooftop bar, we see two women making the best of the season. You can always trust the Gilmores to find the magic in darker days, which can inspire us all to do the same.
‘There’s so many California shows and even eg. The New York shows seem to often skip the cold seasons or at least not show too much of the weather. Gilmore Girls really looks like there’s seasons, while still having the characters spend time outside and looking a bit cold,’ pointed out Tce_ on Reddit.
Plus, as the nights draw in, we usually crave more TV and Gilmore Girls offers sheer quantity. The TV series originally ran during a special era where we’d been fed a new series annually, and each offering would be around 22 episodes long – statistics we can only dream of occurring in 2024.
With 153 episodes over seven series, plus the bonus four from the reboot, it’s enough to keep you metaphorically warm until December.
The whole aesthetic has seasonal energy
The title sequence immediately sets the autumnal tone – as the Where You Lead theme song plays, we see shots of a quaint town surrounded by trees presented with a burnt orange filter – and things only escalate from there.
It’s nothing but hay bale mazes, pumpkins, warming coffees, hearty meals (there’s not a salad in sight), and fireside chats. The town is always up for celebrating Thanksgiving, and Halloween, so is decorated as such.
What Lorelai and Rory choose to wear each day is another nod to the beauty of the time of year. If you want to see aspirational autumnal dressing in action then the series is the perfect provider.
The women’s style is regularly celebrated on Pinterest boards, Instagram feeds, and don’t even get fans started on Rory’s cream wooly jumper.
It feels cosy and safe
When people think of autumn, it often sums up imagery of cosiness, and wholesome vibes.
The world of Lorelai and Rory and their support system is able to provide that in the bucketloads. Although they face some testing times, such as passive aggressive arguments between Lorelai and her parents Richard (the late Edward Herrmann) and Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), as well as Lorelai and Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) taking a while to make it work, they are never really troubled by serious events. Nobody in the series is a bad person, they all have flaws, sure, but it’s unlikely a viewer will passionately hate anyone on their screen.
Reddit account Hobbisidian summarised it perfectly: ‘For me it’s like a comfy warm blanket, it’s an antidote to the sadness that bites when the days get shorter and darker.’
For all these reasons, we hope that Gilmore Girls will long reign over autumn!
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