Gilmore Girls Revival Is Just What the Doctor Ordered

And they're back. Nine years after viewers left Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) to go their separate ways, the Gilmore Girls are enjoying a Netflix rival with A Year in the Life—four 90-minute episodes, each following the characters through a different season in a single year. Here's what critics are saying:

• Some not familiar with the show will "think it too schmaltzy," but fans should consider this "a beautifully wrapped gift," writes Abigail Radnor at the Guardian. While time has changed the characters a bit—Rory now swears and drinks scotch—"for me, watching the specials feels like coming home," writes Radnor, who describes the four episodes as "a love letter" from the series' creators.
• It's "a perfectly timed, if imperfect, slice of holiday escapism," writes Meredith Blake at the Los Angeles Times, noting the show's "seemingly contradictory blend of old-fashioned and modern, of wholesome and worldly, makes Gilmore Girls seem essential at this particular moment." The bad news: the episodes can "drag" thanks to "superfluous subplots." She adds viewers might not be as charmed with this older Rory as they were with her younger self.

• For Daniel D'Addario, the show "falls flat' and suddenly feels "fustily out-of-time." "Watching it I felt less nostalgia than confusion as to whether or not my apartment had become a time machine," he writes at Time. He also wasn't pleased with Rory's plotline, adding "endless wisecracks, some dated but some not, just wither on the vine in scene after endless scene." Though fans won't be deterred by his complaints, they "do deserve better," he says.
• The show "has a tendency to meander in its first three episodes," but "there is a payoff in the closing 'fall' episode," writes Deadline's Dominic Patten. And that's really the key. This revival is "all about giving the people what they want," he writes. It's "TV comfort food." As a bonus, viewers also get to enjoy the return of the "series-defining and almost relentlessly seductive repartee."

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