Gilmore Girls: The Series Blu-ray Review: Days of Their Lives

Gilmore Girls: The Series collects the previously released seven seasons (1-6, The WB / 7, The CW) and revival miniseries, A Year in the Life (Netflix). Created by, and showrunner for all but Season 7, Amy Sherman-Palladino, the titular “girls” when the show begins are 32-year-old single mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and her 15-year-old daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel). Although the packaging and disc menus stop there, Lorelai’s mother, Emily (Kelly Bishop), is also a Gilmore girl. She has a strong and important presence through the series.

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In the pilot, we see how quirky, clever, and pop-culture savvy both Lorelai and Rory are among the quirky inhabitants, some whom are not so clever, of the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Lorelai is the executive manager of the local inn where she works with her best friend/chef Sookie (Melissa McCarthy). Rory has a chance to go to a prestigious high school, but the tuition is expensive. This causes the independent Lorelai to have to ask for money from her estranged wealthy parents Emily and Richard (Edward Herrmann). Seeing this as a way to reconnect, Emily only agrees to give Lorelai the money, if she and Rory will come to dinners every Friday, a great dramatic tool to gather the four together.

The series is a great blend of comedy, family drama, and romantic intrigue that would be familiar to a soap opera as both Lorelai and Rory, get in and out and back into relationships with different men in their lives. The two main men for Lorelai throughout the series are Rory’s father Christopher (David Sutcliffe) and cafe owner Luke (Scott Patterson). In the early seasons, Rory finds herself in a bit of a love triangle with her first boyfriend Dean (Jared Padalecki), and Luke’s bad-boy nephew Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), although the shape changes when others become entangled with one of the trio. The last few seasons Rory gets involved with newspaper publishing heir Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry).

And they aren’t the only ones with relationship troubles. Emily and Richard have issues in their marriage. Lane Kim (Keiko Agena), Rory’s best friend, navigates disappointing her strict mother Mrs. Kim (Emily Kuroda) with her desire to play rock music in a band and her desire for different band members which leads to her becoming a wife and mother.

As the seasons progress, Rory moves from high school to Yale and Lorelai opens her own inn with Sookie, who also becomes a wife and mother, as her partner. Throughout, we see the shifting interpersonal dynamics, especially in the Gilmore family. They support one another but are also hurt and disappointed at times in the choices that are made, which sometimes feel more like a writer decision than a character decision, but while their love for one another is tested, it proves resilient.

When Sherman-Palladino and the CW could not agree on terms for a new season, she selected David S. Rosenthal, a writer and producer for Season 6, to replace her as showrunner for Season 7. Some of the character choices this season seemed ill fitting (like Lorelai’s short-lived marriage) and repetitive. Also, the dialogue didn’t have the same screwball-comedy pace.

After nine years and the series’ popularity on Netflix, Sherman-Palladino returned to lead A Year in the Life, a miniseries of four extended episodes, set 10 years after the Season 7 ended. With the passing of Herrmann, Lorelai and Emily have to deal with the death of Richard. The final episode features a wedding and a pregnancy, leaving the door open for more.

The video has been given a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC encoded transfer displayed at an aspect ratio of
1.78:1. The colors come through in solid hues, Blacks are inky. The image is clean, albeit with some film grain, and has a sharp focus that allows texture details to be seen. The audio is available in DTS-HD 2.0 for Seasons 1-5, and DTS-HD 5.1 for Seasons 6-7 and A Year in the Life. Through, the audio is front-center heavy. Dialogue is clear, music and pop songs have good dynamics, and the ambiance is limited even when expanding to 5.1.

The Bonus Materials are:

Season 1, Disc 4

• Welcome to the Gilmore Girls (22 min)
• Gilmore Goodies and Gossip: “Rory’s Dance” On-Screen Factoids – Pop-up trivia appears during the episode.
• Gilmore-isms (2 min) – Some of the season’s witty wordplay.

Season 2, Discs 1 and 3

• Unaired Scenes from “Sadie, Sadie” and “There’s the Rub.”

Season 2, Disc 4

• Unaired Scene from “I Can’t Get Started.”
• A Film by Kirk (2 min) – Kirk’s in-show film from “Teach Me Tonight.”
• International Success: How Other Countries Welcome the Girls (5 min) – a montage of scenes in a foreign language.
• Gilmore Goodies and Gossip: “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” On-Screen Factoids
• Who Wants to Argue? (1 min) – Characters arguing in Season 2 (seems like it should be longer).

Season 3, Disc 3

• Unaired Scene from “Swan Song.”

Season 3, Disc 4

• Unaired Scenes from “Say Goodnight, Gracie” and “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio.”
• All Grown Up (15 min) – Cast members share from their past.
• Who Wants to Fall In Love? (1 min) – Romantic moments from Season 3.
• Our Favorite ’80s (2 min) – The cast show off their favorite ’80s dance moves.

Season 4, Discs 1 and 3

• Unaired Scenes from “Ballrooms & Biscotti” and “The Reigning Lorelai.”

Season 4, Disc 4

• Gilmore Goodies and Gossip: “Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin’ the Twist” On-Screen Factoids
• Who Wants to Get Together? (2 min) – Romantic moments from Season 4.

Season 5, Disc 2

• Audio Commentary for “You Jump, I Jump, Jack” by Sherman-Palladino and her husband / partner Daniel Palladino.

Season 5, Disc 4

• Gilmore Girls Turns 100 (16 min) – Interviews, highlights, and behind-the-scenes moments as the cast and crew celebrate the 100^th episode, “Wedding Bell Blues.”
• Behind the Scenes of the 100th Episode (5 min)
• Who Wants to Talk Gilmore? (2 min) – Some of the season’s witty wordplay.

Season 7, Disc 1

• Unaired Scene from “The Great Stink.”

Season 7, Disc 4

• Gilmore Fashionistas (11 min) – The show’s costumes get the spotlight.
• A Best Friend’s Peek Inside the Gilmore Girls (14 min) – Agena brings viewers behind the scenes with her.
• Who Wants to Talk Boys? (1 min)
• Kirk’s Tour of Stars Hollow (25 min) – Kirk (Sean Gunn) takes the viewer around the town.

It’s easy to see why the delightful Gilmore Girls was such a hit and remains so decades later. The characters come across like authentic people who take the same chances and make some of the same mistakes everyone does, and the characters do a wonderful job bringing them to life and make the viewer root for them. Gilmore Girls: The Series allows one to own their adventures in one place and the Blu-ray does a good job presenting the episodes in high definition.